The Unexpected Assistance
by Special Forces
Summary: Based on late first season timeline, one week before the last battle, After the Tuxedo Mask was captured. Full summary inside.
1. the Earth’s situation

Summary: Based on late first season timeline, one week before the last battle, After the Tuxedo Mask was captured. The Sailor soldiers' overall efficiency was reduced and facing more and more powerful opponents. While they were in desperation, the Earth's superpowers finally gave them a hand by sending a crack commando unit to Japan…..

Sailor Moon – Unexpected Assistance

Chapter I – the Earth's situation - prelude to the intervention

During the Silver Millennium (10-20th century, according to SM English version) a clash between two ancient civilizations broke out, when the evil side, the Dark Kingdom, under Queen Beryl's rule mobilized the Earth's power to destroy the Moon Kingdom.

Queen Beryl, who used to be a girl on the Earth and fell in love with Prince Endymion of the Earth, but her love was unreturned, as the prince had his heart with Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom. That broke her heart and turned her to the even more evil queen Metallia of the Sun, who gave her an evil power. Beryl's target was to kill Princess Serenity, and conquer both the Earth and the Moon.

The battle was fierce and painful for the Moon Kingdom, as it had no standing army, with the loss of Prince Endymion, by Beryl's hand as the prince tried to save Princess Serenity's life, and the Princess herself, The Moon kingdom was on the verge of destruction. But then, another superpower of the Earth, which wasn't plagued by jealousy and Queen Beryl's possession, could no longer stand with Queen Beryl's action and decided to step in the way, the Eastern Roman Empire, led by just and strong General-turned-emperor Constantine X. The Roman Empire, although wasn't strong as it had been in 1st century, and Queen Serenity of the Moon, could beat the Dark Kingdom, killed Queen Beryl, and sealed Queen Metallia with high costs—Queen Serenity's life. Before dying, Queen Serenity sent the whole of her kingdom to be reincarnated on the Earth.

In 1993, a clash between the two ancient civilizations during the Silver Millennium was reincarnated. The Dark Kingdom was the first awaken. Under Queen Beryl's rule, they tried to awake their powerful ruler, Queen Metallia, once again to kill the reincarnated Princess Serenity and her soldiers called 'Sailor Soldiers', who lived peacefully in Tokyo, Japan and steal the mystical Silver Crystal, the powerful crystal that was able to possess tremendous power. They tried several unsuccessful attacks, and the soldiers could save their own lives and citizens of Tokyo, the situation gradually grew grim as more and more powerful villains continued to come out to the surface. And when the only surprising-assistant, the Tuxedo mask or reincarnated Prince Endymion was captured, the Sailor soldiers could barely take down later generation monsters.

However, this became the international affair. As the Eastern Roman Empire had chosen to fight against the Dark Kingdom, Constantine X received some wishes from Queen Serenity before her death, and he wished for good and smart succeeding emperors, and eventually, the restoration of the Roman Empire. The Emperor himself swore to fight for goodness and became the protector of the Earth.

The Eastern Roman Empire always had good and proficient emperors ever since, and continued to live through the Middle Ages, and Renaissance, before retaking Rome and reestablishing the unified Roman Empire in 1776, 1,300 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In 1992, it became a powerful state as Julius Caesar had wanted to be, second only to the United States as it still retained its old-fashioned Roman Legions, and eventually became a permanent member of the United Nations.

When the modern world knew about the re-existence of the Dark Kingdom and its domination plan, they didn't just sit and do nothing, especially the Roman Empire, which insisted to fight once again, the Federal Forces, a pure-military organization of the United Nations (As the Supreme Commander of all armed forces in the world), decided to intervene by permitting the Roman Empire to deal with the Dark Kingdom in the rest of the world, yet under the Federal Forces strategically command. Within Japan, The Federal Forces sent a Task group there, under the command of Major General Karl Heinemann of the German Armed Forces. Their mission was assisting the Sailor Soldiers in place of the Tuxedo mask or independently operating if the soldiers were unable to do. But The German Armed Forces itself couldn't fully support the Sailors as it had to operate at least in battalion-sized, too slow to move and too boisterous as their tanks and APCs ran around the city. However, General Heinemann had already selected a smaller, even more-skilled special force team which would be the spearhead operative in this mission.

…………..


	2. Arrival of the Elites

Chapter II – Arrival of the elites

Somewhere in Tokyo, 13 February 1993 – 2013 hrs

Dennis J. Thompson was busy eating a bowl of Ramen in his favorite Japanese Restaurant not far from the center of Tokyo, Japan. It was already dark, and he wanted badly to get back to his hotel after the last drop of soup was inside his stomach.

He wasn't just an ordinary American tourist from Washington D.C. He was a Colonel of the United States Army, although Thompson was only 25 years old, quite young or even too young for such a rank. It was his performance and skills that made him to be a full silver eagle. His unit was not an ordinary either. Of course, the Colonel was a Special Force, from the A-216 team. It wasn't a Green Beret unit although had a similar name. The number '216' came from the team's formation day—16 February 1991. The A-216 was famous among the Army personnel and rather famous for the public for their unorthodox methods, which none was in any handbooks, and successful rate. There was no doubt of their performance. All members in this team came from various special force units (Thompson himself was from 101st Airborne division) and had received far more training than any of their counterparts and had almost every skill. They were able to use any weapons or vehicles, operate any type of mission from ordinary recon to infiltration, and multilingual, when combined with their unusual tactics, the team probably one of the best units ever.

However, even the bravest warrior needed a time to rest. After a prolonged mission in the US, the A-216 was completely exhausted and acquired a two-week-long vacation from the HQ. When the HQ asked where the team wanted to go, they chose to come to Japan and had arrived three days ago. They lived in a hotel near the Tokyo tower.

"Is it still good, Dennis-san?" the Japanese Chef asked.

"Still good, as usual." Thompson replied in Japanese. As mentioned before, he was multilingual, able to speak English, German, and Japanese fluently, rather better than the natives. His other skills were disguising and outwitting his enemy. He was a solid tactician and cool-headed, even smiled while in danger, because Thompson usually found the way out.

His suddenly rang mobile phone drew Thompson's attention from the meal. He grabbed the phone beside him and raised it to his ear. The Colonel wondered who would call him. The HQ wasn't in his head. They wouldn't call as he was on vacation.

"Thompson here."

"Dennis, this is General Heinemann, came back to the hotel with your men ASAP. We have an urgent mission."

"Sir, are you kidding me? I'm still on vacation and it will lapse in 19 March."

"Sorry about that, Colonel. The vacation is paused. You'd better come here fast, out."

"What happened, Mr. Colonel?"

"My General called me said my vacation is paused. I can hardly believe this! I've got to go. This is for the Ramen, thanks so much, see you." Thompson said and paid money for the Ramen.

"See you."

Although Thompson was little upset about his untimely-ceased vacation, the duty was more important. He rushed for his rented car that parked near the restaurant and hopped in, his first thought was calling his men. The thumb pressed on the phone's number pad quickly.

"Johnny, it's me Colonel Thompson, get back to the hotel ASAP. Where the hell are the others?"

"They are in Shibuya, sir."

"OK, call them, they may use any type of transportation, except a cab, it's very expensive. We have an urgent mission. I'll be at the hotel in five minutes."

Thompson hung up the phone and drove back to the hotel as fast as he can. If General said there was an urgent mission, he meant that. The only thing he was worrying about was his men. They had gone fairly far from the hotel, which required at least 30 minutes to come back, might longer if there was a traffic jam.

5 minutes later, Thompson could make his way back to the hotel. He drove his car to the empty parking slot. When he was doing so, Thompson saw an unusual car beside him. It was a grey-painted, box-shaped car with a German Army cross insignia on its door. Everybody in that place would wonder who the owner this WWII-era Volkswagen Type 82 was. The colonel jumped out of the car and rushed like hell back to his room. There he found a man he had known for 2 years stood in front of the room. This man wore a well-decorated German Army grey uniform, which could tell that the wearer was high-ranking. It was the Commander of the A-216 team, Major General Karl Heinemann, a-48-year-old Major General of the German Armed Forces. Traditionally, soldiers had to salute the higher ranks before they could begin any conversation.

"Glad you're here, Colonel. Where are your men?" General said.

"They're en route, sir. We can wait for them inside."

30 minutes passed away, but Thompson and General Heinemann felt like they had anxiously waited for days. Several steps and chit-chats could be heard through the door, before it was opened by a group of athletic-shaped men. They formed the line and saluted both high-ranking officers.

They were the rest of the A-216 or called 'A-Team' by Thompson himself, as he was a serious fan of the '80 series 'The A-Team' starred George Peppard, and the way they work was almost exactly the same as the opening title but changed to 'If you have a problem, if no one else can help, maybe you can call 'The A-Team'. They had worked together for 2 years. Members in the team exclude Thompson himself were—

Captain John 'Johnny' Connor, 23, came from New York City. He had been a US Army Ranger before joining the A-Team. He was the most gorgeous member, and had a good leadership. Capt. Connor was the second-in-command of the team.

Lt. Charlie 'The Jackal' Adams, 22, from Wahoo, Nebraska, was a sniper. He used to be a professional racer (He started his racing career when he was 16, cheating his age) before joining the US Army Rangers. His nickname came from his supernatural sniping skill, making a world record by sniping a moving soldier from 3,650 m away with his M82 .50 (12.7x99mm) Sniper Rifle. He was also a vehicle specialist as he could drive or fly anything that had wheels, engines, wings or whatever that made the thing transportable.

No team could survive without an intensive firepower, and Lt. Dwight 'Terminator' Lowe, 22, from Defiance, Ohio, was the solution. He was the biggest member—192 cm and 109 kg, which made him an ideal user for a mighty six-barreled M134 7.62x51mm Minigun. That was why he was called 'Terminator', his personality was an important factor too--Lowe had a German accent as most German-Americans had, he was also able to speak German, Russian, and Japanese.

Lt. Robert 'Doc' Mitchell, 22, an eye-glassed Field Medic from San Francisco, California, he entered the professional doctor career when he was only 18 and became a successful doctor until he quit his job in two years later and joined the Green Beret, then the A-Team. With the extensive experience in the hospital, Mitchell was more proficient than most medics. He was very polite and kind, which made him the most popular man for everybody he had helped in several humanitarian missions.

Lt. Peter J. 'PJ' Defort, a 22-year-old Lieutenant from Wilmington, North Carolina, was a radioman for the team. He was a Green Beret boy like Mitchell, although not in the same team. He was quite intelligent, and a former Air Force Cadet. Defort was proficient in electronics and communication. Defort did had some jokes, but not much as another member.

Lt. Dimitry 'Demo' Vostrikov, 22, ex-Spetsnaz from Moscow, Soviet Union (Before collapsed), was a demolition man of the team. His way of working was 'Blow everything in the way, the havoc will be anywhere I go' Vostrikov was more than excelled in destroying things from a motorcycle to the entire building with C4s and RPGs. He had destroyed 600 tanks, 600 various vehicles, 120 factories and caches, and tons of weapons and other supplies. That undoubtedly made him the most feared member, even his name could make a crying children stop.

Lt. Walter 'West' Westernhagen, 22, a bookworm from Hamburg, Germany, got a duty of pointman. He was good in tracking and Pathfinding. Westernhagen himself was a good marksman too, although still unmatched with Adams. He enjoyed reading so much, when West newly joined the army, he devoured every book about war, war theory and war tactics, he read about various stories as well. His favorite warrior was Gengkhis Khan.

Lt. Daniel 'BBQ' Bacon, 22, from Baltimore, Maryland, had been a flamethrower in the Green Beret and he still was when he joined the A-Team. When energy weapons became available, he became an energy weapon specialist, while the rest of the team refused to give up their conventional weapons. Bacon was a German heritage (His German name was Dieter), and a very good cook. His brother had a very famous restaurant in New York, where Bacon himself proved his skill time to time. When the team was not in action, he would become the team's chef and cook food for his teammates in every meal. Everybody said that Bacon's food was far better than the army's MRE (American soldiers called early MRE as 'Meals Rejected by Everyone', 'Meals, Rarely Edible', or even 'Meals Rejected by Ethiopians' as it wasn't palatable and lack of dietary fiber).

Lt. Philip 'Doraemon' Rogers, 22, from Houston, Texas, but grew up in New York City, was the team's engineer. He came from the 1st Special Forces Operation Detachment (Delta Force). Rogers was a typical redneck/cowboy who always eager to fight, sometimes it was his own eager that kicked him into trouble, but he could make it out. This Ultra-supernatural in survival made Rogers famous—in one assault he was caught up in the open and shot at almost 120 rounds, and hit nothing but air. He preferred his own bulletproof cowboy hat over a military-issued helmet. Due to unknown reason whether had watched too much TV or his own nature, like John McClane in Die Hard, he had a ton of jokes in his head, and able to messing his enemy's head until they went mad. When this ability was discovered, he was always placed as a key player in Psychological Warfare.

Like Q in Ian Fleming's James Bond, he invented and modified several particular equipments for the A-216. Some of them were suitable only for each mission, some of them didn't work at all, and others were very useful until the Federal Army took his invention as its issues. In every mission, the team always asked him for new equipments.

His name 'Doraemon' came from his job as engineer. In US ARMY, engineers had to carry spare ammunitions for their teams. Rogers carried a special backpack that was similar to Doraemon's 4th dimension pocket, it was bottomless.

The last person of this team wasn't a human. Lt. Intel, a special-purpose pale-skinned android who served as an intelligence officer. His directive was to collect as much intelligence as possible. He had not much feeling, and trying hard to have it.

"Sir, what's going on here? I think we have a two-week-long vacation." Rogers asked.

"Sorry Philip, we've a business to do."

"Alright, we're all here, so let's get into our business." General Heinemann said. "Have you heard about Sailor Scouts?"

"Yes, sir." Thompson replied. "I've heard that they protect Tokyo citizens from monsters those have appeared mysteriously since last January."

"Yes, but you'll have no idea where they're from. So are we. Our intel guys told me that they've been looking for the powerful silver crystal, which was inside Tsukino Usagi's body, and their another objective is to defeating the Sailor Soldiers. When the time passes on, they become more and more powerful. We're afraid that eventually they'll unable to deal with them and loses the precious silver crystal to the Dark Kingdom. And don't forget, they have families, and still be students. If those idiots sent their monsters out while they're studying or making some tricks with their families, the city is doomed. Moreover, although they couldn't find the crystal, the Dark Kingdom can gather human energy is an alternative form. Your mission is to assist the scouts and boot those monsters when the soldiers can't do that. If you can find gatherers, blow them back to 15th century."

"RIGHT, it's going to be FUN!" Rogers said.

"Knock it off, Rogers. You can't imagine what it can do to you." Defort said.

"Gah…..OK. But I will boot them anywhere I see them, right?"

"Deal." Defort said. "As long as you don't screw our mission….and yourself either."

"Can it, you can argue later, children. We have all information about the Sailor Soldiers in this file. And you don't have to stay in this hotel. It's pretty far from the Sailors' houses, so all of you will live in a house in Azabu district." General Heinemann said before walked to the door and opened it, letting two people in US ARMY uniform inside.

"This is Maj. Steven Konichek, and Capt. James Crandall from 160th SOAR. They'll be your pilots at your disposal."

"When will we go, sir?" Thompson asked.

"Right now, pack your belongings. Our truck is waiting outside the hotel. Don't worry, we've already checked out of the hotel for you." General Heinemann replied. "I'll go back to the HQ you can make a contact with me anytime, Alles Klar?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Everybody replied.

This was a nature of Special Forces briefing, superiors just gave the operatives a goal. They told nothing about how to achieve it, so the team was absolutely free to do anything.

After General Heinemann left the room, the team had to attend with packing. There were several things to put in bags as there was a group of football-team-sized men lived there. But soldiers were taught to pack quickly, and they could finish it in 5 minutes.

The team walked with a big, heavy pack on their backs all the way down to the hall. There were some German soldiers in old-fashioned WWII uniforms with rifles. Other tourists inside looked at them curiously and worried. If foreign soldiers came into your house in battle-ready manner, you would be curious and worried too.

"Sir," a German soldier, apparently a sergeant, came and saluted Thompson. "Your car is outside, follow me, sir."

Thompson and his men followed the soldier to the front of the hotel. A grey-painted truck was already waiting for them. In daylight, it could be easily noticed, in the dark, it was another matter, although local citizens would hear a noise from Daimler-Benz engine, which was quite distinctive from local Japanese counterpart.

After everything was ready, the truck began to move. It was 2132 hrs, the time that most citizens stayed at their houses, some even slept. But the team still had a mission to do. This might be the heaviest mission ever, as they had to face evil power. But the A-Team would fight against all the odds to save the world. However, before any mission could begin, the team had to make their way to the house first.

…………


	3. Settlement

Chapter III – Settlement

Azabu district, Tokyo, Japan, 13 February 1993 -- 2200 hrs.

The truck lowered its speed to zero in front of a house in Azabu district after a half-an-hour-long trip. This district was purely residential area, as the industrial part had been destroyed by the US bombers in WWII, when the hostility between US and Japan was still hot. Nobody tried to rebuild the part after that. Many celebrities also lived in this area.

"Alright, guys, we're here, c'mon wake up." Thompson said and clapped his hands to wake his sleeping and sleepy men up.

Thompson himself was rather tired, but he couldn't sleep. There was too many things to do, and needed to be done ASAP. He grabbed his bag and jumped off the truck, followed by his men. They could see their house clearly. It was rather big, two-storey. The only thing left was looking inside.

"What about our weapons?" Rogers asked the same soldier.

"They're stored inside the house. We have already prepared this place for you, sir."

"Good, Thanks very much." Thompson said.

"That's OK, sir." the soldier replied. "We've got to go."

The German soldiers didn't want to stroll around here too long than they really needed to, after gave the A-216 a lift, the soldiers quickly hopped in the truck and left the area with a lightning speed, left nothing behind but two smoke trails.

Thompson walked to the house's door and opened it with a key, which he had received from General Heinemann before leaving the hotel. Inside there had nothing but darkness, very familiar for Horror film fans. But if any of antagonists was here, he would be blown back to 15th century. The colonel turned on some lights to make sure that none of the team hit the wall or fell down the stairs accidentally.

"Where's the bedroom, sir?" Rogers asked. "I wanna sleep."

"Maybe on the second floor, if you're so sleepy." Thompson replied. "Gentlemen, if you want to sleep, go and find your room. Tomorrow, there will be a ton of works to do. I don't want any of you to fall asleep while we're shooting around."

"What about you, sir?" Adams asked.

"I will study this file for a couple of hours before going to bed." Thompson replied. "We have to know our friend and foe in detail."

"Hey, Charlie." Bacon said. "Why won't we check our weapon storage?"

"Good Idea." Adams said. "Let's check it out."

"Sir," Intel said. "May I check the house's equipment?"

"Yes, lieutenant, go check our gears. Charlie and Daniel have already gone to the armory."

Thompson walked up the stairs to the second floor. The full-bird colonel found 3 rooms there, 2 were bedrooms and the last was a restroom. He walked into the front room as he always slept in the front room of his own house. There was a bed, a cupboard, a table and a computer, looked like it was prepared for the highest-ranked officer, in this place was himself.

Thompson laid his green bag beside the bed and took everything inside out, clothes, personal belongings, etc. and placed them in suitable places. After sorted his personal gear, he drew his attention to the front glass door, Thompson swept a white curtain away to see what behind it. Behind the curtain was a plain balcony. But a more important thing was beyond that, to a two-storey house just across a tiny road. Somebody was on its balcony.

The CO of the A-216 team could quickly recognize her blonde, odango hair style. He couldn't believe that his base was exactly in front of Tsukino Usagi's house. Thompson had seen the file about her, and knew that she was the leader of Sailor scouts. The girl didn't notice him as he was looking through a window. But introduction could be done later. Thompson closed the curtain, then walked to the table and started studying all information inside the file.

…………

The A-216's house, 14 February 1993 – 0630 hrs

The sunlight came through the window and touched Thompson's face, waking him up. He found that he was still on the chair and the file on the table. The CO realized that he had studied the file for 2 hours and had fallen asleep while studying it. He hadn't even changed his clothes, so he went to the cupboard and changed to private clothes.

"Sir," a voice came through the door. "Do you wake up?"

"Yes, Charlie." Thompson replied. "What's up?"

"Today Bacon makes a good breakfast, sir. He said there is a lot of stuff in our fridge."

"Good, I'll out there in 5 minutes."

After changed clothes, Thompson went down to the kitchen, where his men stayed. All of the A-Team members were sitting around a table, which was rather small for 11 men. There was a big pot on an oven. Smell of pork stew flew around. Thompson didn't have to guess what was inside, he already knew from its smell. Bacon was standing in front of the over had a cooking hat on his head and a white apron covered his clothes from staining. His men had already finished their meal, except Lt. Intel, who couldn't eat, because he was an android. Thompson sat down on a chair and started eating stew.

"So, what is going on now, West?" Defort asked Westernhagen, who was reading a newspaper.

"Not much, politics, celebrities, ads, crimes. Nothing is useful for us."

"Guess who live in front of us?" Thompson said. "We're exactly in front of Tsukino Usagi's house."

"Really, sir?" Adams said surprisingly. "The Federal Army find us a very nice place, shall we introducing ourselves to her now?"

"Not yet." Thompson replied. "We'll follow them into the action, if anything goes wrong, go assist them."

When the meal was ended in each member's stomach, the Team went upstairs to observe Tsukino house. But in order to avoid noticing, Thompson would be only observer, while others could do something else until something came up as they were 'firefighters'. To make sure that nothing slipped through their nose, Defort had set up a communication center in the sitting room, intercepting the police's frequency.

While Thompson was observing Tsukino's house, Defort ran into his bedroom in hurry like he was running from hell.

"Sir," Defort said. "We have a situation."

The A-Team rushed downstairs without fear of falling to the sitting room, where all of intercepting devices was inside. Defort leaped for the chair, wore a headphone, and listened to the message between policemen. No need for translators, he was proficient in Japanese too. The radioman quickly lectured everything he had got on a paper before sent it to Thompson.

"We've a situation. A group of monsters are gathering energy in the middle of Tokyo. The Sailor Scouts are handling them, and that's hell of a fight." Thompson said. "Alright, boys, get our weapons right away, time to action!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Time for grabbing weapons and goes to fight, the A-Team rushed to the armory, which was a medium-sized secret room in the first floor behind wallpaper, if there was any guest here, they wouldn't notice it. Thompson opened the wallpaper and went inside.

The team's eyes opened wide in spectacle. It seemed to have enough weapons for the entire infantry division, with 10 two-meter-long racks, full of various military-grade weapons, ARs, RPGs, Pistols, Grenades, etc. As the Federal Army had a special weapon research division that assembled from all weapon designers around the world, with almost unlimited funds, they were able to invent several hi-tech weapons (Many of them were still unavailable in 1993). There were several green wooden boxes at the corner, which were the ammunitions.

"Gentlemen, you have 5 minutes to get your guns."

Nobody had hesitation. They rushed for their metal partners as soon as they heard the command. Col. Thompson himself strolled around one of the racks once before grasped an M1921 'The Chicago Typewriter' Thompson sub-machinegun, the '30 Mafia's symbolic weapons, along with a Colt M1911A1 .45 ACP Pistol. Capt. Connor chose an M16A2 Assault Rifle with a Colt M1911A1.

Lt. Charlie 'The Jackal' Adams did take his weapon according to his duty as a sniper. He stared at something on a box in the middle of the armory. If it was a firearm, it was quite big—Barret M82A1 Sniper rifle, chambered .50BMG round, it was capable of taking down any big monsters or helicopters. For a pistol, he used a .50 Smith & Wesson M500 Revolver. Both of them were hard-hitting, able to knock an unlucky dinosaur out in one shot.

Lowe always carried his favorite 7.62x51mm NATO M134 six-barreled minigun due to its massive firepower. This time he took one with him, along with a Benelli Nova Tactical shotgun, which was the latest innovation from the Federal Army research division (It became available publicly in late 1990s). Certainly, most of the A-216 members had Colt M1911A1 as their sidearm, except Rogers, Westernhagen, Vostrikov, and Adams.

Westernhagen came from the Waffen-SS unit, so he used 2 primary arms, a Mauser K98 bolt-action rifle and a SturmGewehr-44. Both were WWII-era German Army main weapons. He grabbed a Walther P38 as his sidearm. He had used Walther PPK earlier, so his teammates sometimes called him 'Mr. Bond' before he shifted to more powerful Walther P38.

Mitchell's weapon of choice was M16A1 as it was capable to fire in full-auto, although the rifle itself had many reliability problems. He also took an M1911A1 with him.

Defort preferred M16A4 (still unavailable in 1993) Assault Rifle because of its ability to attach many gears to it, from leaf sight to M203 Grenade launcher.

Vostrikov was from Russia, so his favorite was the best known assault rifle in the world, an Avtomat Kalashnikov AK-47. His pistol was Russian too, a Tokarev TT pistol. He also took some C4s and an RPG-7 rocket launcher with him.

Rogers, as a full-blooded Texan, was quite different from the rest of the team. While his teammates chose modern or WWII-era weapons, Rogers loved Wild West weapons. His weapon of choice was a Winchester rifle and an old-fashioned Colt Single Action Army M1873. He even had his own leather holster for the revolver, so he could draw it up quickly.

Intel came from Federal Army Intelligence division, and he was programmed to use energy weapons. He chose a laser rifle and a laser pistol.

Bacon was in trouble because there was none of his most favorite weapon there. He reluctantly took an M4A1 Carbine and a Colt M1911A1. The team took ammunitions and put some of them into Rogers's backpack.

"Sir, there is none of my weapon." Bacon said. "Who can explain this?"

"That thing? Hah, I don't think they would bring it here." Defort said.

"Gah, what a boring."

"Guys, hurry up. They won't have all day." Thompson hastened his team.

The A-Team went out of the house in combat-ready manner to a big, black GMC van that was brought to the front of the house by a German soldier. When all of them were in the van, it rushed off to the destination. The A-216's first mission against the Dark Kingdom had begun.

………..


	4. First Encounter

Chapter IV – First encounter

Tokyo, Japan, 14 February 1993 – 1020 hrs

Tokyo, which had been peaceful since World War II was totally messed up like in Kosovo although it was the Valentine's Day. Police cars ran around the city. People panicked and ran away from a battle between Sailor Soldiers and the Dark Kingdom's monsters. Who their energy had been collected motionlessly lain on the ground.

"Shabon Spray!" a voice came out from a blue-suit Sailor. Shortly after, dense clouds of mist was created and covering the entire area, blinding all monsters in the area. Although it had no directly damage, this provided a good distraction for other form of attacks.

"Supreme Thunder!" another voice came out, then a thunderbolt stroke in the middle of the monster group, scattering them.

The Sailor Soldiers had fought seriously to stop the monsters from gathering energy, or at least, try to contain them in the area, so the rest of Tokyo would survive the attack. However, looked like Queen Beryl threw everything she had got against the Sailors as more and more monsters came out of a dimensional gate. She might use them to be a cannon-fodder and tired the Sailors down, and then Beryl would send more skilled youmas to kill them all.

After a prolonged fight, the outnumbered Sailor soldiers eventually used all their powers up, and totally exhausted. Without assistant from the Tuxedo Mask, and when their own safety was compromised, they were forced to fly away from the battle. The Sailors sought refugee inside a partially-collapsed building. They had to take a rest, at least for a while.

"We should have done better." Makoto Kino, or Sailor Jupiter, said.

"We can't, there're too many enemies." Minako Aino, or Sailor Venus said. "I've never seen such a number of them before."

"I feel like….I'm going to be faint……." Ami Mizuno, Sailor Mercury said. She had taken a wound in her left arm. "I….can't breathe well."

"Oh, you're losing blood, we've to do something." Sailor Venus said.

"Everybody, we can't give up!" Sailor Jupiter said.

While the Sailor warriors were resting, hoping that somebody would come to help them. The room's door was opened, and a middle-aged man in white deliverer suit, with moustache, beard and Rayban sunglasses came inside. In his hand were 2 boxes of something.

"Sushi! Sorry that I'm late." The man said. "Oh my god, you're the Sailor soldiers. What are you doing here?"

"We….we've lost the battle." Usagi said with breaking voice. She was going to cry.

"Oh, sorry to hear that. And what should I do with this Sushi when all the inhabitants in this place have gone!? I still have two more places to deliver these Sushis." The man said before noticing the wound in Sailor Mercury's arm. He went to the girl and checked her wound.

"You're bleeding."

"If somebody can help us, it would be a lot better." Sailor Mercury said.

"Really?" the man asked.

"Yes, of course."

The Sushi deliverer lowered his head down for a few seconds, and then rose back up. He took his hat and glasses off, but the girls were far more surprised when the man took his own moustache and beard off--They were fakes. They started to wonder who this guy was, who was so much younger than 2 minutes before. The deliverer took a radio from a pocket and said something into it.

"OK, it's clear, come in." the deliverer said, in the completely different tone.

"Who are you guys?" Rei Hino, Sailor Mars, asked.

The man said nothing but stood up on his feet when the door was opened again, this time was a group of full-armed Caucasian military men. They came inside quickly, left two of them to cover the door. A soldier, who appeared to be a doctor, came to Sailor Mercury to check her bleeding wound.

"All clear, sir." A soldier reported.

"Who…..y….you?" Sailor Moon asked falsely as her English was quite terrible, and she noticed that they weren't Japanese.

"Don't worry about that, we can speak Japanese." The doctor replied in Japanese.

"Ladies, May I present the A-216 Special Force team, or you can just call us 'the A-Team'. But I'm sorry that we wouldn't have much time for introduction. My name is Col. Dennis J. Thompson, U.S. ARMY. We're here to assist you, but in this situation, we'll take care of you and them as well." The deliverer introduced himself. He took off his red uniform, revealed the green military uniform underneath, and drew his M1921 Thompson from inside the red jacket. "You can eat the Sushi at your pleasure. I've bought it from the best restaurant in Tokyo. OK, Doc, you stay here, call for CASEVAC if you need to. Others, let's move."

The A-Team went out of the ruined building to the battle zone, where the monsters were walking around, searching for humans and more priority, the Sailor soldiers. They didn't notice that one of the most effective and annoying Special operation team was there. But the A-Team's own tactics was the factor, they moved from corner to corner as they didn't want to expose themselves before everything was ready.

When the A-216 team went deeper and deeper, they saw the monster-summoned dimension gate quite clearly on the middle of the deserted street. Nothing came out or in, like there were no more monsters left at another side. For the team, it was not showtime yet. Thompson and his men stopped at a corner, peered around it and swept his eyes through his binoculars to gather as much information about the terrain as he could. He also saw the gate generator, a fist-sized purple jewel on a lone, fat monster on a T-Shaped crossroad, which didn't move at all.

"Charlie, can you see a big jewel on that monster's forehead?" Thompson asked.

"Clearly, sir."

"Find a building and shoot it after my signal, go."

"Yes, sir."

After Adams left the team for a suitable place for sniping, the team advanced swiftly to a wrecked blue car on the road, where nothing blocked their line of fire, without noticing nearby youmas. Thompson was thinking about the most classic battle tactic in the world, flanking. 5 of remaining 9 men had separated to another 'arm' of the T-shaped crossroads, awaiting the signal.

"The Jackal is ready, sir." Adams whispered to Thompson's radio.

"Fire at will."

On a building away from the dimensional gate, Lt. Charlie 'The Jackal' Adams was sitting with his one knee up on the concrete surface on the third floor of the building. His big brother, the Barrett M82A1 rifle was in front of him. Its bipod was placed on the window's edge. For him, this was the best place for sniping, and wasn't too far away.

Actually, a Sniper team always had two members, Sniper and Spotter. But Adams chose to be a lone wolf, 2-in-1. He carefully looked through a scope. From here, Adams could see his teammates hiding on two out of three arms of T, and the gate, which was his primary target. He had to take it out of commission so Queen Beryl couldn't send anyone in or out. Therefore his teammates would sweep the rest. This would be a rather easy target as it was static. He had only one chance for true sniping, if he threw a shot off, what happened next would be firefighting with a sniper rifle. In the U.S. ARMY sniper school, all students had to yell 'One shot, One kill!' when they were lined up.

The Jackal placed his trigger finger's tip on the trigger as the Sniper school had taught, then aimed through the scope. He carefully placed the crosshairs on the jewel, although it was fist-sized, it was yet small target when shooting from 400m away. That was why Snipers had to be a careful cool-headed guy, to sit in one place without moving for 10 hrs or longer and adjusting the crosshairs in less-than-millimeters space. Adams waited for a while then applied some pressure to the trigger.

His little pressure caused a chain reaction, the sears disengaged. The barrel recoiled back for an inch. After the short travel, a post on the bolt engaged in the curved cam track in the receiver turned the bolt to unlock it from the barrel. As soon as the bolt unlocked, the accelerator arm stroke it back, transferring part of the recoil energy of the barrel to the bolt to achieve reliable cycling. Then the barrel was stopped and the bolt continued back to extract and eject a spent case away. The recoil from the .50 BMG round was massive, and able to kick the unprepared or untrained shooter away for meters. Its noise was like a thunder.

A copper-coated, 12.7 mm-sized bullet traveled through the barrel, and then the air. With almost 1,000 m/s in speed, it made a distinctive 'sonic boom' noise as it pierced through the sound barrier. The bullet spun through the air and exactly collided with the jewel, breaking it into pieces.

"Never know what hit him." The Jackal whispered.

Without the gate-opener jewel, the dimensional gate slowly shrank down and ultimately disappeared. Thompson, who saw that the only escape for the youmas was cut off, gave a signal for a full frontal attack. He stood up and strafed at everything on sight with his M1921 Thompson sub-machinegun. Each member also fired with their own weapons.

At the other branch of the road, where the second Fireteam was, Capt. Connor, Vostrikov, Lowe and Rogers opened their flanking fire. Lowe, who had the most dreadful firepower in his hand, provided suppressing fire with his formidable M134 minigun, fed by an ammunition backpack on his back. A storm of copper bullets swooped down the road and pierce everything in its way, a roar from ignited gunpowder, mixed with a spinning electric motor echoed in the air. Vostrikov repeatedly triggered his AK-47 to send bullets to any monsters he could see.

With such a tactic and immense overall firepower of the A-Team, the monsters had nowhere to run, no cover that could protect them. Some of them had vaporized after taking some bullets. The last one had nothing to do but raised their both hands up, surrendering to Thompson.

"I surrender!"

"OK, guys. that's it, cease fire!" Thompson ordered.

The gunfire ceased quickly, left the sector in quiet like all the firing had never happened before. Thompson and his fireteam advanced toward it in hot (You will know what it mean If you play a PC Game 'Full Spectrum Warrior'—The Author), while Connor's fireteam joined him at the crossroads. Basically, when POW was captured, he had to be treated well under Geneva Convention. However, the captor could ask some information from the POW, for the A-216, Rogers would be the interrogator. He grabbed the monster's neck without prior notice.

"Tell me where the energy collector is or I'll blow my aggression inhibitor!" He asked fiercely.

"I don't know!"

"He's lying." Thompson whispered to Rogers.

"Then you have a choice. First, tell us everything you know then go back to your hideout, be innocent and you'd be fine. Second, still shut your freakin' mouth up and get some booting and a .30-30 round from my Winchester M1894!"

"Yeah, this guy is freakin' crazy, if he goes mad, he will kill everybody on sight!" Defort said.

"I swear that I don't know!"

"Phew…." Rogers sighed. "Alright, if you don't know nothing, get the hell out of here, you've got 10 seconds to be out of my sight, or else!!!"

Without any replying, the monster turned back and ran as fast and it could away from the team in panic and oblivious to the world. Rogers was still counting, when he said zero, he swiftly raised his rifle up and emptied the tube at the running monster. It screamed in panic as .30-30 rounds were flying past. No round actually hit it, as Rogers didn't want to kill it at all. All he had done was just a kind of his well-known psychological warfare. After the monster had gone, the A-Team laughed, especially Rogers and Defort, who were already easily-amused.

"Did you see that? It's one of the funniest things I've seen in 10 years!" Defort said.

"Yeah, I wanna do that since I was a kid. Maybe I've watched too much television." Rogers said, lowered his rifle. "But I don't regret that anyway, I love TV."

"Alright, we've let it go, what will we do next, sir?" Bacon asked.

"Don't worry, Bacon, I've got a plan." Thompson said.

……….

Somewhere in Tokyo – 30 minutes later

Inside a middle-sized warehouse, there was a white hair man, who was once one of the Prince Endymion's bodyguards and friends. But later possessed by the evil queen Beryl and turned against the Prince. He was the oldest bodyguard, named Kunzite. He walked around in anxious, wondering that why all 8 monsters those sent to search for the Sailor soldiers didn't come back while the collector had come back 10 minutes ago. Due to their strange appearance, they wouldn't wander around and order pizza.

"They should have come back. Does anybody see them?" Kunzite asked his remaining three monsters, everybody swayed their heads.

After Kunzite finished his speaking, the door opened, and the monster that just survived from Rogers's bullets came into the warehouse. The Shitennou walked toward it to ask what had happened and where the rest was.

"Where are the others? And….why don't you use the dimensional gate to come here!?"

"Sorry Mr. Kunzite. They're all dead."

"What!? The Sailors are all crippled. I see that with my eyes! I don't think they can counterattack us."

"No, sir, not them, somebody else, a group of full-armed men, attacked us. The gate is destroyed, so I have to walk all the way here."

"Who?"

"I don't know, maybe a soldier, not even Japanese. I think they are Americans. They destroyed the gate in only one bullet, kill the rest of us, and shot at me. I'm so lucky that survived."

"American Soldiers in Japan!?"

Suddenly, all the lights in the warehouse were gone without prior notice, left the entire building in the dark. Nobody saw anything, and knew nothing about the reason the light went off. Kunzite groped his hand on the wall to find a switch, which wasn't too far from him. The switch was already in 'on' position, which meant that they were facing the blackout.

Shortly after, the door was once again opened, drew everybody's attention to a long white hair, mustached man in an electrician uniform, with a flashlight in his right hand, and an equipment metal box in another. He came inside the warehouse without anybody's permission.

"Who're you?"

"I'm an electrician from the Japanese government." The man replied in rather high-tone, speedy voice. "There is a blackout, covered the entire city. I think that your….Is this place your warehouse?"

"Yes, it's mine. And you should get out, there's nothing wrong here." Kunzite replied.

"And why do you four guys dress like that?"

"We're part-time actors. Tomorrow is going to be a show."

"The whole city uses series circuit, if any light went off, the entire city will be in the dark. I've checked the entire city and found nothing wrong except your warehouse! Will you let me check this or let me report back to the government and the all Tokyo citizens that there is a freakin' idiot who refuse to cooperate and let the entire city in black?"

"…….OK, you can check this place, but hurry up." Stunned Kunzite replied. "I've to practice my acting, it's quite hard."

The electrician smiled and walked to the main breaker in the warehouse, followed by the youmas. He laid his box down and opened the breaker's metal cover to check if any fuse or switch was shut down.

"OK, what've we got?" The electrician said and showed something to the youmas. It was a molten fuse. "Without this, the circuit is ruined. Don't worry, I'll change it."

The mysterious electrician groped into his pocket to find a new fuse. Luckily that he already had one, if he had none, he had to go and buy one. The electrician put the fuse into the empty slot and turned the breaker to 'on'.

After fed by electricity, all the lights in the warehouse amazingly came back to life. But it brought something else into this place. As Kunzite and his henchmen turned back, they found that all members of the A-216 were pointing their weapons to them. They were quite surprised. Worse, when the youmas turned back to look at the mysterious electrician, the latter took his hat and mustache off his face, and grabbed a Thompson machinegun inside the equipment box.

"I love it when a plan comes together." The electrician or Col. Dennis J. Thompson of the A-216 said, in his original voice. "Actually my men simply cut the power line that connects to this place off. And remember, No city would build their power system in series circuit."

"You….you're the American soldiers! How can you find this place?" Kunzite said surprisingly.

"Simple, we just followed that guy all the way here." Rogers said, pointing to the survivor. "I don't kill him because of this. Now surrender to us or facing hell. Choose quickly, I'm losing patience and gonna be crazy. That guy knows how crazy I am."

Instead of surrendering, Kunzite decided to make a counterattack. In his opinion, they were just ordinary soldiers, indifferent than disorderly without-magic-power citizens, contrary to him, who was able to summon magic boomerangs to slash his target. He smiled in self-confidence as two purple magic boomerangs appeared in his both hands.

Thompson and his men had to take cover behind boxes as the boomerangs flew toward them. Although they never faced with magic users before, they knew the most common method to deal with any enemy, shooting back. The A-216 members pointed their weapons to the youmas and shot the hell out of them. Real, copper bullets began flying around like unstoppable hailstorm. Kunzite, who had never seen guns either, made a run for it as he knew nothing about taking cover as well as his monsters, including the energy collector.

"He's getting away, Demo, shoot at the collector."

"Da, comrade Polkovnik." Vostrikov replied.

Vostrikov lowered his AK-47 Assault rifle for something more hard-hitting. He shouldered the also famous RPG-7 (Rocket Propelled Grenade-7) which he always slung on his back for using against anything bigger than average-sized human. The A-216's Demoman aimed for the routing big collector monster, which had all energy it had gathered inside its body, and then pulled the trigger.

"RPG!" Thompson warned his men as a standard procedure, before the voice was drown out by the motor of the RPG-7 warhead.

The warhead streaked past the boxes, which the team using for cover, and Kunzite himself closer than 10 centimeters, before collided with the collector's body. The collision triggered the igniting mechanism inside the warhead, creating the chain reaction that had the end at the cone-shaped-charge warhead. The shaped-charge had an advantage; the whole explosion would be concentrated at the cored side, increasing its penetration power. It was a fundamental idea of every anti-tank missile.

The explosion was as powerful as the Russian weapon should be. It punched a hole into the collector and blew everything in its explosion radius away. When the collector's body breached, all the energy it had contained inside was unleashed out. It circulated inside the warehouse for a few seconds before scattered away, back to the owners.

Had lost the energy they collected, Kunzite could realize that his plan was totally screwed. Worse, after Vostrikov shot his RPG away, the rest of the team resumed firing. The biggest soldier, Lowe, had the most suppressive weapon in his hand, the M134 minigun. It sprayed copper bullets like a shower at 6,000 rounds per minute. They penetrated almost everything inside the warehouse, including Kunzite's last cover, a wooden box.

"Alright, conserve your ammo, cease fire!" Thompson yelled, ceasing all firing completely. "You've been suppressed, pal. Now would you like to surrender?"

"I'll be back!" Kunzite said. Although the gate had been destroyed, he was still able to open his own personal gate to go back. Kunzite opened the gate and vanished away with his remaining monsters, left nothing but silence and peace behind.

"Sir, Is this will be good? Letting them go?" Defort asked.

"No, but at least we can ruin their plan, and do some funny things." Thompson said. "We still can't decisively destroy them without the Sailor soldiers. Now, let's go back and check them out."

"Wilco, sir."

The A-216 rushed all the way back to the Sailors' hideout on foot. Mitchell had already bandaged Ami's wound, and he was checking the rest. Every Sailor soldiers looked far better than 30 minutes before.

"How are they?" Thompson asked.

"They're better, sir. I've bandaged Ami's wound, nothing serious." Mitchell replied.

"What about them?" Sailor Moon asked.

"About those monsters? You won't believe that what we've done. We shot the hell out of it and blew the collector up. Now everybody will get their energy back." Rogers replied.

"Thank you so much." Sailor Mars replied. "There's nothing more to do, let's go home."

"After covering up your wounds, As far as we know, your relatives know nothing about your Sailor status." Thompson said. "Do you want us to give you a lift?"

"No, thanks." Sailor Jupiter said.

"And where do you live?" Sailor Moon asked.

"You'll find out, alright, let's go." Thompson said before withdrew his unit away, left the Sailor soldiers behind, as they were able to take care of themselves, for now.

…………….

The A-216 house – 1300 hrs

The A-216 members drove the van back to their house peacefully after the first victorious mission. Now they would be in resting state until the Sailor soldiers operated again. Adams, the team's driver, put the car into a tiny parking lot inside the house's fence. The team covered their vehicle with a large special purpose car cover before went into the house.

"Phew…..our first mission is successful. If our first step is good, the last will be better." Rogers said.

"Yes, and now what will we do? Just sitting and let the time pass away?" Defort asked.

"I'm afraid that we've to, we're working in firefighter-style." Thompson replied.

"Hey you guys, let's see what the TV will say after the incident." Adams said and turned the TV on. There was a news reporter in the TV, although she reported in Japanese, the Team could understand every word.

"This morning, a group of unidentified monsters made another attack in Tokyo. But with the help of the Sailor soldiers, our city is once again safe."

"We've got no credit, huh?" Defort said.

"We don't have to, Comrade PJ." Vostrikov said. "Although we received no credits, only us and the Sailor soldiers that know exactly what we did."

"Vostrikov is right. We'll be less exposed if we keep our stealth state." Intel said.

A ringing bell that went into the A-216 members' ears simultaneously ceased their activities, pushing them to full alert status. They wondered that who knew about their operational base as they told nobody. Everybody readied their weapons and went to the door.

Thompson looked through a hole in the door to see who was outside and rang the bell. He saw 5 girls stood outside. The CO could recognize them swiftly as they were the Sailor soldiers, in private clothes. He smiled in calm and turned back to his awaiting, battle-ready men.

"OK, they're the Sailor soldiers, looks like they can find our base quite quickly." The CO of the A-216 said, then unlocked the door and opened it.

"Good morning, Mr. mysterious guy. We've to search the entire area to find your house. If Usagi didn't see your van, we would have lost days to find you." Makoto said. "Do you live here?"

"Until the Dark Kingdom is destroyed, then we'll leave this country." Thompson replied. "Let the guest standing outside is not good, so come in."

The Sailor soldiers followed Thompson into the house, passing the rest of the team. They went to the sitting room, as it was the only place that big enough for 16 persons. In Japan, houses were rather small. Mostly there were no more than 5 persons in a house.

"We come here, because we want to know you in details." Rei said.

"Alright, let me introduce my team as you've known my name. This is Capt. John Connor my second-in-command. That's Lt. Charlie Adams, our most skillful sniper. Lt. Dwight Lowe, Machine gunner, he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, so we call him The Terminator. Lt. Walter Westernhagen, he was a very good pathfinder. Our Doc, Lt. Mitchell. Radioman Lt. Defort. That pale man is Intelligence officer Lt. Intel, he isn't a man but android and don't speak much. He's learning how to be a good human, maybe you can teach him. That's our best Cook and Flamethrower Lt. Bacon. Two guys there are Lt. Vostrikov from Russia and Lt. Rogers from Texas."

"And what are you doing here?" Minako Aino, or Sailor Venus asked.

"I thought I've told you before. We're here to help you in place of the missing Tuxedo mask. We're sent by the Federal Forces."

"Sir, can you find the Tuxedo Mask? Please." Usagi begged.

"We've been searching for him since the first second he disappeared. But still out of luck." Thompson said. "CIA guys in Langley, FSB officers in Moscow and MI6 authorities in London are searching for him and provide us some useful intelligence through Lt. Intel, he is the only one who can download and stock all of them inside his head."

"3 most famous intelligence agencies in the world can't find a man?" Rei said surprisingly.

"The Earth has 6 billion people, finding one is an extremely difficult job, especially if he is in captivity." Intel said. "We've a roughly 1/6,000,000,000 chance to find him."

"We may not found him right now, but I promise you, Usagi, that if we do, I'll tell you first." Thompson said.

"Thanks so much." Usagi said.

"I heard that the monsters are looking for the Silver Crystal, besides gathering human energy. I think that you may know where it is, Usagi."

Usagi answered nothing, but touched at her heart with her hand. Thompson's eyes opened wide, his teammates had similar reaction, ranged from gasping to blown eyes like Thompson.

"It's……..inside me." Usagi said. "With the Crystal, I'm able to use 'Moon Healing Escalation', the special power that can convert the possessed monsters back to their original form."

"Oh my god." Thompson said. "Does the Dark Kingdom know about this?"

"Yes, they know, and coming after it."

"Alright, don't worry, if we're here." Thompson said. "All of you can come to our house as you like, make yourselves at home. They'll have no chance against us in our own home. If they insist to come, I'll introduce my M1921 Thompson to them."

"Thank you." The Sailor soldiers said.

The Sailor soldiers stayed at the A-216 house for one more hour before said goodbye. After the Sailors had gone back to their houses, the team fell in 'at ease' status. They did their own hobbies. Westernhagen grasped some books from a bookshelf to read, while the rest had a chit-chat together. Thompson turned on the TV to find some interesting programs. He pointlessly changed from channels to channels until his ears heard something from it, energizing him immediately.

"In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit. These men probably escaped from the maximum security start cage to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by a government, they survive as soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire 'The A-Team."

It was the intro of Thompson's favorite TV-Series 'The A-Team' starred George Peppard, Dirk Benedict, Mr. T, and Dwight Schultz. He had been collecting all of the Videos since 1983, when he was still 16 years old. Unfortunately, despite of hardest trying, he could only obtain 4 videos.

Overall, their first mission was totally successful, the A-216 members lived in happiness and ease for the rest of the day, but if something happened, they would be readied for it.

……………


	5. Ice Skate Brawl

The A-216 house, 15 February 1993 – 1100 hrs

Today, the A-216 members were in the kitchen, anxiously waiting for lunchtime. They retained in passive status, and nothing happened in the morning. This caused all of them grew bored, though nobody wanted something bad to happen. Thompson decided that he should energize the team by some activities.

The team's CO was sitting on a table in the sitting room. There were several parts of his M1921 Thompson machinegun on the table, while its owner was cleaning the barrel part. Thompson was cleaning his gun as it was a strictly routine for every soldier to keep their gun operational, and nobody would want their guns to jam in the middle of a firefight.

After he assembled his gun, Thompson could think about the time-killing activity. He walked back to his men to tell about it.

"How much time we have before lunchtime?" Rogers said.

"1 hour." Lowe replied.

"1 hour? Oh my god, I'm rather starving."

"OK, guys, let's do something, killing time. Let's figure out who can be the fastest in field-stripping his gun and assemble it back." Thompson said.

"Wow, that sounds good, sir." Rogers said. "Let's do it."

Intel's laser rifle didn't require field stripping to keep it operational as it was too complicated with micro-scaled computers and parts, so he didn't enter the 'competition' and became the referee while the rest quickly find a suitable place for gun-stripping.

"OK, 1….2…..3!"

The members stripped their guns as fast as they could. As they used different weapons, the simplicity was the most important factor to win, and that lay in the Russian weapon. Although Thompson was the fastest in field-stripping, Vostrikov was the leader as his AK-47 rifle had only few major parts, while Mitchell was the latest as his M16A1 was rather complicated and he wasn't a fast stripper at all.

But Rogers's rifle didn't contain many complicated parts either, even less than the AK-47. Although he was slightly slower than Vostrikov, he swiftly took a lead and became the winner.

"Yeah, I win!" Rogers yelled after snapped the last part of the rifle back to its position.

"This is unfair, Comrade Rogers has such a simple rifle, didn't require field-stripping at all!"

"Come on, Demo, this is just a time-killing game!"

"OK, then, as you said." Vostrikov replied.

After the competition, the team continued waiting until the lunchtime. Bacon broke off the group to cook another expected-to-be-excellent meal for his teammates, but he told nothing about his food until it was completed. As the food was served, the members began devouring them in hunger, but not so greedily, they simply ate it faster than normal.

The ringing ring distracted the team from the meal, ceasing the eating completely. Thompson walked to the door and opened it, revealed General Heinemann behind the door.

"Colonel, we've got a situation."

"OK, sir. Come in."

Thompson led the German General to the kitchen, where his men were. They expected some briefing or something similar that mean another mission, because General Heinemann would only came for that.

"Our Abwehr guys tell us that the Dark Kingdom had set up another trap for the Sailor Moon."

"Where, sir?"

"At the recently-completed 10 Han Ice Arena, there's going to be an opening ceremony by 2 Olympic gold medalists figure skaters, Misha and Jenelyn. They will also open a free lesson today. Although the situation is still perfect, but we can smell something bad, you'd better go there in 1 hr."

"Yes, sir." Thompson said. "OK, gentlemen, grab your weapons in 5 minutes, go."

"What about the food, sir?" Rogers asked.

"Bring it into the fridge as much as you can, we'll finish it later." Thompson replied.

The team went to the armory and grabbed the same weapon they used yesterday, before marched to the van that was parked beside the house. This van was a GMC G-Series van, the same model that was used by the A-Team in their series. Although the van was painted plain white and had less customization than the A-Team's in order to be less eye-catching, Thompson still wondered how many Japanese would use the pure American van while they had their own counterpart.

The real problem for the team wasn't the van, though. As the A-Team had stayed in Japan for only 2 days, they were rather unfamiliar with such the vast city, and relied heavily on asking the locals about places in Tokyo. If they hadn't known Japanese, the team would have been in trouble.

"Sir, where's the arena?" Adams asked.

"Don't you know this?" Thompson said. "I don't know either."

"Oh, my god. Intel, where's the arena?"

"Still no information about the place, the Intelligence reported they will upload the data into me in 1 hour."

"Gah, even our walking library Intel doesn't know anything about this place, and take 1 hour! 1 hour that none of us can get it back for eternity. Have you guys any alternate resolution?" Rogers said.

But General Heinemann already had a solution, as he always have had. He walked to the van, where the A-216 team was. The General saw that the A-216 members were arguing about how they could get to the destination. Suddenly, another man came from outside the house to the German General. He was in private clothes, and everybody could tell that he was Hispanic. Both of them stayed outside the van and watched the argument, which still in progress even the both persons was looking at the team through the opened door, for a while before General Heinemann decided to pause it.

"Alright, alright, you don't have to argue." General Heinemann said.

"Who's that guy, sir?" Rogers asked.

"This is Antonio Rodriguez from the Central Intelligence Agency. He will be your navigator and provide you some useful information through your intelligence officer. He has been around here for many years."

"Good Afternoon, the A-216."

Antonio Rodriguez, a 45-year-old Mexican-American was an ex-Captain of the US Army, and a Vietnam veteran. After finished the second tour in Nam, he transferred himself to Japan and stationed there before joined the CIA. But he refused to go back to work at Langley as he loved Japan so much.

Rodriguez could speak Japanese pretty well and was familiar with every inch in Japan. With 20 years of experience here, Rodriguez was a very useful and reliable person for the Task force's operation against the Dark Kingdom.

"OK, hop in, Captain." Thompson said.

"Thank you, sir." Rodriguez replied before jumped into the van.

………………..

10 Han Ice Arena, Tokyo, Japan, 15 February 1993 – 1420 hrs

At the front door of huge Ice Arena was crowded with several human, mostly girls. After they heard that Misha and Jenelyn, the two Olympic medalists in figure skating would come and open the arena, as well as teaching a free special lesson.

Among the crowd were Tsukino Usagi and her friends, as she had watched TV in the morning and whether become obsessed by ice skating, or gorgeous Misha, nobody would know that. And what she had yet to know was she was a great and beautiful ice skater when still as Princess Serenity in Silver Millennium. Luna and Artemis, which knew well about Usagi's past, thought that this would be a way that able to give Usagi her past memories.

"Today, I'll be the best skater!" Usagi said.

"Alright, alright, Usagi, let's go." Ami said.

Inside the arena was a big skate rink for ice skating, surrounded by grandstand, which was capable for thousands of spectators. The eager students crowded around the rink while the two Olympic medalists were in the middle of the arena. Everybody had a pair of skate, ready to become figure skaters, although there was no male partner inside.

As it was the opening day, the arena's owner, Mr. Edward Beller III and his five companions were also here. Beller was a retired professional ice skater, and dreamed to see ice skating as the most popular sport in the world, although he knew that ice skating would never replace the already-famous like Football. He and his companions sat on the second line from the rink.

On the rink, Usagi, who was once the best ice skater in the Moon kingdom, performed so badly. She couldn't even stand on the ice with her skate shoes, while the rest of the Sailor soldiers were able to make some basic moves. Beller and his companion swayed their faces, the girl would be one of the worst skater ever seen, but this was the first day, she would be better if received enough training.

But the most particular among the students was Makoto Kino, who was able to make exotic moves, spinning, sprinting, etc. This drew Misha's attention to her, as he had had some troubles and falling out with his currently partner, Jenelyn, before opening the special course. Misha smoothly skated to Makoto to ask her to skate with him.

"Wonderful girl, can you skate with me?" Misha said, causing Makoto's face to be blushed red like a tomato.

"Er…..yes, coach."

The amateur skaters stopped their skating to see the probably most perfect partner in the world, Makoto and Misha. They skated together and made several flawless moves. This caused watching Jenelyn to be jealous as she used to be Misha's best partner, and now, her partner turned to an unknown girl who didn't earn any medal. However, they had to switch their position in lifting movement, as Makoto was rather too heavy for Misha to lift her up, so strong Makoto had to be the base for Misha instead. They could still make it perfectly, enraging already-jealous Jenelyn, who decided to leave the rink.

"Hm…That girl is gifted, huh?" Beller said to his companion. "She would be the next Olympic gold medalist."

"Yes, Mr. Beller."

Nobody inside the arena knew that Misha and Jenelyn were working under a Dark Kingdom general, Kunzite. Their mission was luring the Sailor soldiers out to skating, and the best skater would be considered as Princess Serenity. Jenelyn herself didn't go too far away, she was inside a monitor room that controlled all CCTVs in the arena. The female skater compared every student to the Sailor Soldiers' profile.

Suddenly, all of the monitors changed to Kunzite's face, as he was making contact with Jenelyn.

"Master Kunzite."

"Find Sailor Moon through her agility and athletic abilities. Does it look like it will work?"

"You can count on me, Master."

"Good, but however, you've never actually met the Sailor soldiers, so don't let your guard down."

As soon as Kunzite finished talking, the monitors changed back to normal, let Jenelyn proceed on her assignment. She continued checking the students, until found Usagi, who was trying to stand on her skates.

"Sailor Moon is a superb soldier, although she has a clumsy side, but this is out of question."

Jenelyn decided to overlook Usagi. If Kunzite was still there, he would yell out loud 'That's REAL Sailor Moon'. But when one of the cameras was looking at Makoto and Misha, it enraged the female skater a lot.

"Misha, how could you pass over me?" Jenelyn said, her body violently shook in jealousy and anger.

But she still had a trick to do to prevent Misha from breaking up from her. She grabbed a microphone, which was attached to all loudspeakers inside the arena, before said that the lesson was over, and told the students to leave immediately.

Everybody muttered a little about the untimely ended free-course, include Beller and his companions as the schedule said that the lesson would be over in 1 hour, not this time. But if the instructor said like that, they had no choice but left the rink as well.

Makoto, whose skill kicked Misha's eyes, was about to leave the arena as well. But her wrist was grabbed by Misha, who didn't want to let such a gifted skater go away.

"Wonderful girl, you can stay here, I'll give you a special lesson, personally."

"Thank you, coach."

"Mr. Beller, I request the special lesson for her, sir." Misha said.

"If you want, so be it." Beller replied.

Beller III, who was about the leave the arena at the first place, decided to stay where he had been after gave Misha a permission to continue the lesson personally. He and his group went back to their seats to watch the probably most beautiful figure skating in the world.

Suddenly, one of Beller's companions could hear the shutter's noise, it was closing, sealed everybody inside. They became impatient as this wasn't included in the schedule. However, Both Makoto and Misha still knew nothing about this.

"Something's wrong, Mr. Beller. I hear the shutters are shutting down."

Before anybody could react, Jenelyn jumped back to the skating rink. Her face could tell anybody that she was totally obsessed by anger and jealousy, and nobody should mess with her.

Without any prior sign, Jenelyn transformed herself to the monster form. All of remaining humans inside the rink were all surprised, and more surprised that she stroke at Makoto with her 'Triple Axle kick', blow her body away to the rink wall. Makoto's body hit the wall badly and rendered her unconscious for a few seconds.

"Misha." Jenelyn said and stared Misha's eyes, transferring her feeling to him.

Misha, under Jenelyn's control, skated to his partner and transform his body into the monster form, a kind of black suit. Beller III and his companion saw everything, but they also knew nothing to do as if they went there, they would be all busted.

After both Misha and Jenelyn transformed themselves into the monster form, they stared at untransformed and surprised Makoto as she saw them, and they couldn't let her return alive. The couple skated toward her like a raging bull and then jumped up in the air at last 4 meters before spun around.

"Combination Jump Attack!"

Their attack was so powerful, as Makoto was hit hard. Her clothes were partially ripped while her body flew away across the rink wall to the stand part, 8 rows below Beller's seat. Makoto tried to get up, but her pain was too much, all she could do was stay where she was.

But there was somebody else inside the rink, beside Makoto, the monster skaters, and Beller's group. It was Usagi. She didn't come out of the arena alongside her friends but hid inside to beg Misha for a special lesson, as she wanted badly to be a good skater. Usagi had walked all the way to the rink and saw everything that happened to her friends.

"Alright, that's it!" Usagi said. "Moon Prism Power, make up!"

After Transformed herself, Usagi jumped directly to the rink and emerged skating blades on her boots. But her skill didn't increase even transformed. Instantly after she landed on the rink, Usagi couldn't control her balance and eventually slipped, landed her body on the ice.

The couple laughed heavily as they didn't expect that real Sailor Moon couldn't skate, moreover, so clumsy. But they had to take the Silver Crystal from Sailor Moon, or if possible, kill her and call Kunzite to extract the crystal from Sailor Moon's body.

Before Jenelyn could finish Sailor Moon off, a repeatedly minor explosion exploded from somewhere far away, overlapped metal clinking as spent cases hit the ground. The sheet of ice in front of her was popped by several copper bullets, caused her to stop and find the source. The explosion came from an M1921 Thompson in Beller's hand. A group of smoke still flew out of its barrel, telling that it had fired its ammunitions just a few seconds ago.

"The real Mr. Edward Beller III is in Sweden, maybe he's skating or skiing somewhere near Stockholm now." Beller said. "We're substitute for him."

Beller removed his hat and white wig off his head, revealed his true brown hair. He also removed his fake mustache off as well. Makoto was totally surprised because this man's face was so familiar to her, Colonel Dennis J. Thompson of the A-216 Special Force Team. His companions simply took their hats off to reveal their true identity, then drew their hidden weapons up. They were Vostrikov, Connor, Rogers, Lowe, and Adams. The rest of the team emerged out of various seats around the rink, fully-armed.

"Kunzite, do you remember us?" Thompson said to Kunzite. Although he didn't see him, he was certain that Kunzite was around here. "Or do you have short-memory?"

"Alright, let's play skating." Rogers said.

The A-216 members streaked out of the stand to the rink. All of them were trained in ice-skating, so this wasn't a problem for them. The A-216 members skated swiftly on the rink, not in smooth, beautiful figure skating but rather extreme, daredevil style. Moreover, Thompson also sprayed some .45 ACP bullets on the rink to interrupt further attack from the couple as he knew that they were just obsessed human skaters, and he had to strike at its source.

Jenelyn and Misha knew nothing to do when they saw the A-216's extreme style skating. They jumped, spinned, turned a somersault, and slided on the rink wall like Tony Hawk with ice skates. That was too fast for them to make any attack, even if they tried, one or all of the Special Force team would suppress them with their weapons.

Thompson knew that only Sailor Moon's magic could reverse the skaters back to their human form, but Sailor Moon herself couldn't skate, and became a sitting duck for any attack. As the couple was unable to attack the special force, they turned attention to Sailor Moon. The A-216 CO skated as fast as he could and picked the Sailor's body up to evade from the attack. He jumped on the rink wall and slid along it like skateboarders before jumped off and let Sailor Moon go. This could be a very good skating lesson for her, as Thompson thought so far.

Ice Skating was rather similar to cycling, it was easier to control the balance while on the move than standing still. So Thompson always kept Sailor Moon on the move, if she was going to stop, he would rush in, picked her up, and dragged her. This wasn't an easy job as she kept screaming and losing balance, but as the time passed, she became more proficient, at least how to skate without slipping.

"Sailor Moon, reverse them!" Thompson said.

"Moon Healing Escalaton!" Sailor Moon yelled.

With combined power from her Moon Stick and Silver Crystal inside her body, the stick glowed white and emerged a kind of power to the monster couple. It didn't lethal, though, but instead revived the monster back to their human form. During the process, the monsters would chant 'refresh' before turned back to their original form.

Shortly after, both Jenelyn and Misha fell on the ground in exhaust. Mitchell and other members jumped into the rink and rushed to them. The doctor examined the couple with his medical gears while his teammates covered them.

"They're OK, sir." Mitchell reported.

"You're a good skater too, Mr…." Jenelyn said.

"Col. Dennis J. Thompson, US Army." Thompson said. "Actually I haven't skated for 12 years."

"So, you must be a natural born skater." Misha said.

"If this call natural born skill, I'd be natural born in every skill." Thompson replied. "I just try to adapt to the environment."

After Mitchell checked both skaters, he skated swiftly to Makoto, who was still lying against the wall. He wasn't a professional skater, though. But the A-216 members were required to be able to operate in any environment, even in the space, so he had to train in ice skating for several months. The doctor sat near Makoto and examined her body.

"Are you OK, Makoto?"

"I'm almost fine, doctor." Makoto said. "I'll transform, Jupiter-power, Make up!"

Makoto transformed herself into Sailor Jupiter form. Shortly after, the three remaining Sailors came to the rink and reinforced Sailor Moon. They had known that something went wrong since the shutters were lowering.

"What's wrong, Sailor Moon?" Sailor Mercury asked.

"The couple is youma, but I've reversed them back." Sailor Moon replied.

Everything looked peace until Kunzite, who saw his minions were reversed back to the human form appeared on the ceiling. He was so furious that the same team of Special Force help the Sailors tore his plan apart again. Now he had another plan in his head, as the arena was air-conditioned to keep the rink frozen, he would freeze everybody below.

He snapped his finger and then something happened. A big black ball that attached to the ceiling, which nobody noticed, started glowing red. Then two giant air extendable vents extended from the ceiling and blew cool wind down to the Sailors and the team. The Sailors covered themselves with their hands, but the blowing air was too cold for them. Snow appeared everywhere.

"This is the icy hell of absolute zero temperature. Once you all have turned into ice figures, I'll return and take my sweet time getting the Silver Crystal." Kunzite said before vanished back to the Dark Kingdom, or wherever.

"The temperature is zero degrees, as he said, sir!" Intel said.

"Sir, we're all gonna be snowmen!" Rogers yelled.

"Demo, blow that ball up!"

"Da!"

Vostrikov untied his RPG-7 down from his back and shouldered it up. He swiftly turned it to the glowing-red ball and pulled the trigger, sent a PG-7VR 105mm warhead directly to the target, leaving a smoke trail behind as it streaked to the ball and blew it away.

As the ball, which was the control device was no longer functional after took a direct hit from Vostrikov's well-known RPG-7, the vents stopped blowing the air. Intel rechecked his scanner that was indicating the arena's temperature. It was rising back to standard level.

"We're saved." Sailor Venus said.

"At least we won't become snowmen, huh?" Rogers said.

"Yeah." Defort said.

But somebody wasn't totally happy, Makoto. She looked at Misha and Jenelyn, who started talking with each other to align their mutual understanding. Looked like there was no more room for the girl, and she would no longer be with him.

"What's wrong, Makoto?" Mitchell asked.

"That couple, they are so perfect." Makoto said.

"Makoto, you're a gifted skater, you'd find your future partner someday." Mitchell said.

"I understood, I won't let it bother me."

When the A-216 members and the Sailors, untransformed, came outside the arena, it was already dark. Tokyo in the night was decorated with lights, and it was so beautiful like other large cities. Thompson had the GMC van parked at a nearby parking lot, so the team didn't have to walk back home. However, with gentleman's instinct, he offered the Sailors a lift.

"Do you want a lift?"

"No, thanks, we can walk back home." Rei said.

"Alright, then, see you tomorrow." Thompson said.

"Goodbye." The Sailors said.

"Bye." The team said.

The team walked to the van with triumph after completed another mission in Japan. They still wondered what Kunzite would do if he came back to the arena and found nothing, so Rogers decided to go back into the arena, followed by his teammates. He took a paper from his backpack and wrote a message to Kunzite, then dropped it on the rink and swiftly extracted away via the GMC truck.

"Mission accomplished." Defort said.

"The Dark Kingdom would flare up if they know that another plan is foiled." Lowe said.

"Don't be so over-confident, gentlemen." Thompson said. "Spartacus died because of this, he chose to fight against the Roman Army once more instead of immediate fleeing into Gaul, and then, that's it, no more Spartacus. I mean we've to stay sharp as the first time we're here, Are we clear?"

"Sir, yes, sir." Everybody replied.

10 minutes after the A-216's extraction, Kunzite came back to the arena. He was surprised when he saw nothing there, except the destroyed ball. Kunzite walked around the rink only to meet a paper, which was written:

"Sorry that we have to tell you that your plan to make snowmen from us is failed. We've to go. See you later!

From the A-216 Special Force team."

……….


	6. Fightin' on the Jet Plane I

Chapter VI – Fightin' on the Jet plane I

Dark Kingdom, 16 February 1993 – 0240 hrs

Queen Beryl was totally impatient, anxious, and frustrated as she looked at a black crystal sphere, the unknown special force managed to foil her plan again, even they had no magical powers. Kunzite walked in to report her about their failed operation.

"My queen, the Special Force assaulted us again." Kunzite said. "They also left a note for me."

"Again?" Queen Beryl said. "Looks like they're not ordinary soldiers as you have told me, we have to develop a special method to handle them."

"Yes, my queen. Maybe we can use some exotic methods like skyjacking, to lure them out. If the Sailor soldiers would come, we will capture Sailor Moon and take the Silver Crystal from her."

"Good, do it, and I will expect for good news."

"Yes, my queen."

…………….

Haneda International Airport, Tokyo, Japan, 16 February 1993 – 0810 hrs

Haneda International Airport, which was one of the busiest airports in the world, and one of the two primary airports serving the Greater Tokyo area, was crowded by thousands of passengers from all over Japan. Until 1960s, it was always overcrowded and eventually forced the Japanese government to build an alternative one, Narita International Airport.

As it was crowded everyday, it was quite easy for Kunzite and his monsters to disguise as passengers and mixed up with other innocent passengers. Kunzite himself didn't want to come as he knew rather well about the mystery Crack commando's efficient. He had been almost captured by them, and unwanted to take another risk. But he was the only one that able to take down the Sailor soldiers.

Today for Japan Airlines flight 112's passengers seemed to be an ordinary flight. People booked their tickets and went aboard like other planes. They didn't think that only a few minutes later their plane would be skyjacked.

……….

The A-216 house, 16 February 1993 – 0830 hrs

At the A-216 house had nothing unusual, although the Japan airlines flight 112 had been hijacked, but the authorities didn't receive any calls. The ATC's frequency couldn't be easily intercepted by Defort's Radio, and nobody would try to prioritize on them as they couldn't prioritize on anything.

The Radio operator was certainly Defort, who woke up at 0710 hrs to listen to the radio. However, he couldn't operate 24/7, so he worked in shift with Lt. Intel, who didn't have to sleep, as his power system had the life expectancy of 150 years. The rest of the A-216 team was in relatively passive status, for now, if something went wrong, they could ready themselves in 5 minutes.

The ring ranged out again caused Adams, who was the nearest to the door, to opened it. He didn't guess who rang the bell at all, as General Heinemann was there. He always wore grey German Army uniform, and not many people saw him in private clothes.

"Bring The Colonel to me."

"Yes, sir." Adams said. "Colonel, General is here."

"What's going on, sir?" Thompson asked.

"There's no time for talking now. We've got a skyjacking. Get on the van and go to the Haneda Airport, I'll brief you on the way there."

"Yes, sir."

The team ceased their routine and took their weapons from the armory as usual, then followed General Heinemann to their GMC van. Adams hopped in as a driver, while the rest got into the back sector. After everything was ready, the A-216 started rushing to the destination.

"Dennis, Japan Airlines flight 112 has been hijacked 20 minutes ago." General Heinemann said. "Is it smelled well?"

"No, sir, I think the Dark Kingdom is responsible to this incident."

"You've got the point. Do you remember the guy two days ago, the one you had shot the hell out of him?"

"Yes, sir. Kunzite."

"It's him. We've a reliable report from MI6 guys that Kunzite has a special weapon for dealing with the Sailor soldiers, a type of Phased gun."

"What do they ask for, sir?" Connor asked.

"They demand a ransom of 500 million yens and refueling in 1 hr, said they will go to Libya."

"Who the hell can prepare such an amount of money in 1 hr? I don't think they need money at all." Defort said.

"Yes, and bad news is the Sailor soldiers are at school and unable to go save the passengers. This mission, we're on our own." General replied.

"Alright, Adams, you've gotta drive faster!" Thompson said to Adams.

"I know, but we're in the most crowded area of Japan. And this time is a kind of rush-hour, we're gonna face traffic jam all the way to the airport."

"Oh C'mon Charlie, where's the legendary NASCAR driver? You're driving like an old lady who can't drive at all."

Upon hearing Rogers's word, Adams flared up as he had been a three-time NASCAR champion, and nobody dared told him that he drove like an 'old lady who can't drive' or something like that, as Adams would angry like Marty McFly and the word 'Chicken' in _Back to the Future_ Trilogy. His racer instinct possessed him as he fully-pedaled his van, screaming it along the road, zigzagging past the most crowded area of Japan to the Haneda airport.

Within only 7 minutes, the A-216's van arrived safely to Haneda international airport, where the counter-terrorist operation was settled by the German Armed Forces. The team drove slowly to a hangar that became the command center for the operation, before got out of the van and walked in.

"Sir," a soldier greeted General Heinemann. "They keep demanding for the ransom and fuel or they start killing passengers."

"Not killing, they will collect human energy from them." General Heinemann said. "Take me to the ATC ASAP."

"Yes, sir."

At the traffic control tower was totally chaotic as Japan had never experienced in handling the hijacking before. So, the control had to fall into the German Armed Forces' hand. Inside the tower had only two officers, who had to control all the traffic in the airport, very heavy job especially with early computers.

"Gentleman, this is the A-216 special force team. They will handle with them from now on." General Heinemann greeted the controlling officers.

"Oh, thank you General." The Japanese officer replied. "We don't know what to do with them, they keep demanding for a ransom and fuel. If we don't obey, they will dump the plane in the ocean."

"Alright, stay calm. We'll make through this together. Is the communication still online?" Thompson said.

"Yes, we can make a contact anytime."

"Haneda tower, this is flight 112, where is my money? I'm losing patience."

While the officers were confusing and didn't know what to do, Thompson could see a picture on the wall. It wasn't scenery but a portrait of somebody, with the name below it 'Edward Grimes, the US Ministry of defense'. Then an exotic idea went into the A-216's CO's head.

"Let me talk to them." Thompson said.

"Yes, sir." The officer said, before letting Thompson made a contact.

"You'll get your money when the passengers are all released. Their safety is the first concern."

"Who's that?"

"This is Edward Grimes, the United States ministry of defense."

"Whoever you are, no deal, the passengers will be released in Libya after we've the money."

Thompson did nothing but turned the radio switch off, cutting down the communication completely. The officers, who knew nothing about Thompson's plan, grew impatience, while the A-216 members just stay calm as they also had experienced in negotiation and counter-terrorism.

"Don't worry, they'll call back." Thompson said.

"The US minister of Defense?" The officer asked.

"They sound like newbie, if we present them such a big guy here. They'll be panic and know nothing to do."

"Haneda tower, this is flight 112, don't you know that we can drop this plane down anytime?"

"Yes, but you need money, don't you? You don't want to die poor, and you're running out of fuel, pal. If you land here and release the passengers, you'll get 500 million yens and the United States minister of Defense and his assistant as your hostage."

"Alright, alright, we'll make an approach, clear the runway for us."

"OK, the rest is yours. Boys, this is a plan, Rogers, you're skilled in Psychological warfare, I want you to be my secretary and get aboard with me. The rest of you, go find ground crew uniforms and hide inside the plane's belly, bring some weapons just in case. When I give you a signal, assault the plane. OK, let's go."

"Yes, sir!"

Kunzite and his youmas, one of them could fly a plane, landed safely at the Haneda International airport. They were little panicked as they didn't expect for a clangorous incident, all they had planned was demanding for a ransom while collecting the passengers' energy. This would draw the Sailor soldiers' attention. When they came and tried to save the passengers, Kunzite would shot them with his phased gun, before pass through the dimensional gate back to the Dark Kingdom. However, when the situation turned out like this, they had to proceed accordingly. The monster taxied the plane to the end of the runway, far from the main terminal to avoid possible rescue operation by any counter-terrorists.

On the ground, the A-216 remaining members, disguised in Japanese ground crew's uniforms drove a fuel truck to the airplane. To avoid suspicion about excessive in numbers, there were only 4 persons exposed, while the rest hid behind the gas tank. As the truck reached the plane, the exposing members started refueling, but they wouldn't do it fast, as Thompson had ordered to stall the process until all of the assault team was on the plane.

Connor, who led the assault team, jumped off the truck and ordered his hiding men to climb into the plane's cargo area, the only place that large enough for 10 men. The exposing members, Lowe, Adams, Mitchell and Intel, started refueling the plane. They could see the passengers running down the stairs to the ground. Thompson's negotiation skill was usable. Actually, it was Kunzite's decision to let the passengers away, all they concerned was their own safety, and the Minister of US Department of defense. With this guy, they were able to lure the Sailor Soldiers anyway.

Meanwhile, a black limousine ran unhurriedly from the terminal to the airplane, in opposite direction to the passengers. Then it stopped near the entrance and opened its door, revealed two suited men. One was mustached and had a black hair, and glasses, another was quite younger and had a clear face. In the mustached man's hand was a big, black business case. They walked aboard in relatively ease.

Just 2 minutes after the landing, the plane unexpectedly started its engine, meaning the pilot was getting out of the airport, in spite of partially-refueled tank. If the fuel line wasn't removed before the plane took off, it would caused a leaking and any spark could turn the truck or even the plane into inferno. Adams, who was still on the ground, little surprised in the first place, acted quickly by shutting off the fuel transferring and lunged for the fuel line, then pulled it off before rushed back to the leaving plane as fast as he could. He would miss the plane if his teammate didn't give him a hand, Lowe, who was the tallest member, grabbed Adams's collar and pulled him aboard.

"Phew…….that's totally close." Adams said. "Thank so much, Terminator."

"Never mind, The Jackal."

"You're not good runner, are you?" Defort asked.

"Do you wanna run after an airplane that taxiing at 20 km/h? I'd shove you overboard and let you try." Adams said.

"OK, enough for chit-chat. We have to wait until the plane stop ascending before we can proceed." Connor said.

After feeling that the plane was holding its current attitude, at 25,000 ft. Connor examined the cargo section of the 747 plane, which wasn't a problem as the A-216 had been trained in hijacking situation and knew pretty well in every aircraft's blueprints. He could see a locked manhole on the ceiling, which was unable to open from the inside. The only way to open the cover was taking the lock off. Already had a suitable equipment for this, Connor could took the lock off easily, and slightly opened it.

What he could see through a tiny gap between the cover and the floor was a youma, in human appearance, in front of him. He found, and expected that he was inside the hallway near the restroom. It turned its back against the manhole, so Capt. Connor was still unnoticed. The Captain also saw that this sector was totally isolated from the rest of the plane by a curtain. All he had to do before proceeding was put this monster out of commission.

Connor waited until the monster went away from the manhole, and then slowly opened the cover before climb out of the cargo part with a big, polished wrench in his hand. He quietly stalked to the unnoticing youma. In Special Force unit, stalking and knocking an isolated guard was a fundamental skill.

"Hello." Connor greeted the monster before whipped into its stomach with the wrench, then whipped again in its back of the head, completely knocked it out of commission. The next thing required not to alert the rest of the monsters, hiding its body away. Connor dragged the monster's unconscious body back to the manhole and pushed it down the hole into the cargo part, where the rest of the team was.

"You guys take care of him. I'll go check the CO." Connor said.

"Yes, sir." Bacon replied.

…………


	7. Fightin' on the Jet Plane II

Part VII – Fightin' on the Jet plane II

At the business class part of the plane, Thompson and Rogers were brought to sit there, surrounded by four youmas and Kunzite. The CO could realize that something went wrong from what he had expected. One of the monsters brought a book to Kunzite, he looked at it, and Thompson's face again and again. He was trying to compare the portrait with the disguising Thompson. In fact, the actual minister was quite fatter than Thompson, and he was unable to increase his weight in 30 minutes.

"You're not like in the portrait." Kunzite said and took Thompson's fake mustached off. "Seems you've lost some weight, Mr. Grimes."

"Er….he's been sick." Rogers said.

"Yes, a virus. Haven't eat for weeks, Runny nose, infected ears, mustache falls off." Thompson tried to act.

"Who exactly are you?"

Now Thompson comprehended that his plan had gone completely awry, so he removed his entire no longer useful disguise off. But he still had the secondary plan. Kunzite had never seen his men, although he had encountered with the almost-full-team A-216 two days before (Except Mitchell, who had to take care of the Sailor Soldiers) He was able to lie about his exact manpower aboard, this time he would tell them that only himself and Rogers were the special force up here.

"We're a couple of freelance lone ranger type. We're hired by the Japanese government to deal with you guys."

"Alright, we had to bail out." Kunzite said to his monsters. "I can't use my personal gate in the airplane, so we've to bail as soon as we're out of radar range, go to the luggage area and get all parachutes. For you freelance, unless you have wings, you're dead."

But this incident didn't slip away from Connor's eyes. He had been behind the curtain that separated between him and the first class sector. He had seen and had heard everything the youmas had said. Now it was time to go back to his teammates.

Before Connor could make it back, however, one of the youmas opened the curtain and came into the aft passenger sector, forced Connor to hide behind a seat. The wrench was still in his hand, ready to attack.

As the youma passed Connor's seat, the XO (Executive officer, meant the second-in-command in the US Army) of the A-216 special force team popped out and hit the monster with the wrench. With such a power, it went out cold almost immediately, even before its body hit the floor. However, Connor couldn't take a risk by letting the monster's body hit the floor or its comrades would hear the noise and huddle here, so he held its body, and dragged it back to the belly cargo area.

"What's going on, sir?" Westernhagen asked.

"Colonel and Rogers are in trouble, captured in the business class. Defort, try to send a message to them to go to the restroom. I'll pick the youma off as much as I can. The rest of you, after we cleared our two captured members, assault the sector. No firefighting there or the cabin will depressurize and then….The end."

"Yes, sir." Everybody replied.

After Connor climbed back up, Defort, the intelligent radio operator of the team started his mission. He knew pretty well about this 747-400, so he chose to use a little maintenance tunnel underneath the business class sector to get the nearest position to his CO and engineer without exposing himself to the youmas.

Defort pulled the tunnel's cover off and crawled into the tunnel. Inside, he could hear several footsteps, youmas, he thought. It had only a thin floor that separated him and the monsters above, any voice could be heard above. He slowly crawled on his back to Thompson and Rogers's seats, although he knew nothing about their positions, he could follow their noise anyway.

The Radioman stopped crawling after he heard Rogers's voice above him. Vocal message wasn't a good idea as everybody would know that somebody else was in the plane, so Defort decided to use a tapping or better known in the Morse code. The code was intelligible only among the special-trained users, including the entire A-216 team.

On the business class seat, Thompson and Rogers were thinking about how to escape from this situation. Their hands were cuffed, making any operation more difficult. But Thompson could hear Defort's code quite clearly.

"Rogers, listen. It's tapping." Thompson whispered. "I think it is the Morse code."

"Sir, I think it sounds like something broken in hydraulic unit." Rogers whispered.

"I'm sure it's Morse code." Thompson replied as he tried to listen and interpret the tapping noise.

"It's Defort, go…..to…..the…..Lavatory."

"Sir, I went there before we left." Rogers said.

"Connor had a plan in his head, we've to follow him. OK, we'll reply him."

Thompson tapped his foot in Morse code back to Defort, while he and Rogers started singing a song to cover the message. This was a double-edged as their singing drew Kunzite and his monsters' attention. They walked back to him to ask what happened.

"Alright, what's up here?" Kunzite said.

"Not much, we're gonna die anyway, so singing is the thing we want to do before swimming in the ocean."

"I want to go to the toilet. You guys parked the plane just 3 minutes, not enough for me to go there. Come on, I'm feeling not very good, please." Rogers said.

"OK." Kunzite replied before turned to his monster. "You take them to the toilet, the rest of you stay here."

Thompson's plan to get somebody to the toilet was successful. He could guess what his men planned to do. Rogers was taken to the toilet at the aft sector, accompanied by a monster, which its overall strength was down to 4 from original 6.

"Er…excuse me. I can't do anything inside when I'm cuffed." Rogers said. When he saw that the monster grew hesitate, he started persuading. "Oh, C'mon, What am I gonna do, flush myself down the toilet?"

The rather stupid or inexperienced captor inserted the key into the handcuff and twisted it to release Rogers's hands. Then Rogers went into the restroom and closed the door.

Inside the lavatory, Rogers grew impatient when he saw nobody inside. He had thought that when the door was opened, one of his teammate would go out and take down the captor. But his impatience quickly faded out as the floor near his feet was pushed out, revealed Defort's face.

Defort, who was small compared to the rest of the team, although he was 6' (180 cm) but his slim body made him the ideal tunnel crawler. He jostled through the little makeshift manhole up to Rogers with another wrench, before opened the toilet door and charged at the unsuspecting monster. Defort hit it with the wrench, knocked it out as the third score of the day.

As the only hostile in the aft section was eliminated, and overall strength of the Dark Kingdom on the plane was only 3. The team began the full frontal assault. Defort gave a signal to awaiting Mitchell, to let him pass the message to the rest of the team. Shortly after, all of the A-216 members began crawling up from the cargo area. Everybody was fully-armed, although Thompson himself had insisted on 'no-firing' policy as blowing a hole in the plane would depressurize the entire cabin.

The A-216 team, fully armed with Assault Rifles and Heavy Machineguns, advanced slowly and stealthy toward the business class. Lowe, Adams, Defort, Intel and Mitchell were on the portside walkway, while Connor, Bacon, Vostrikov, Westernhagen and Rogers were on the starboard.

However, Connor didn't want to storm the position, starting a firefight and blow the whole plane up. They just took covers and waited the hostiles to be panic about missing men and started looking for them. That was work, Kunzite grew impatient about his missing youmas, they were already out of radar range, but everybody he had sent to get the parachutes never came back. He ordered all his remaining monsters to find the missing, while himself went back to the pilot's cabin and took an only parachute inside.

But when the monsters opened the starboard walkway curtain, they were hit in the face by Westernhagen's gunstock. Before Kunzite could react, the rest of the team rushed into the business class and pointed their weapons at him, as had happened in the first encounter.

"Ain't you boring at being captured twice in a week?" Rogers said.

"Last time we met, I'd escaped away." Kunzite replied. "Now I've a parachute, and I'll blow this plane into pieces. Unless you've wings, you're dead."

The thing that Kunzite didn't suspect was Thompson's position. Before Kunzite went into the pilot cabin, Thompson was sitting next to the window. But after he came out, the captive was sitting next to the walkway. Before Kunzite could notice that Thompson had switched his position, Thompson used all strength he had in charging to Shitennou's body, causing him to fell down from his feet. Then the rest of the team rushed forward, trying to capture him. However, Kunzite had one advantage over the A-216 team, he had supernatural powers. Kunzite summoned an energy boomerang and threw it at a window, breaking it and causing depressurization, sucking everything inside out of the broken window.

While the A-216 members tried hastily to hold something, the Shitennou just let it go, he let the air sucked him out of the broken window. He had a parachute, and survival chance was still high.

By the way, Thompson and his team had faced such an incident twice before in their firstly missions. They knew that they had to go to the pilot cabin and try to dive the aircraft down below than 5,000 ft MSL. The A-216 pilot, Charlie Adams, climbed seat by seat to the pilot cabin, shut the door and turned off the autopilot.

"Alright, Hold on!" Adams yelled through the cabin door before pushed the yoke forward.

As Adams pitched the aircraft, the attitude indicator began turning backward as fanatically as he wanted to get to 5,000 ft as fast as possible before any of his teammates would be hypoxia, or worse, sucked out of the plane (Contrary to Hollywood myth, the loss of window won't cause an explosive decompression, but it was still possible to be sucked out of the aircraft if stay too near the window). When the indicator showed that they were at 5,100 ft, Adams pulled the yoke back to level the plane, which wasn't an easy job for such a big, fat 747 aircraft.

Thompson, Intel, and Connor came inside the pilot cabin as they wanted to examine and control the situation. Adams could smoothly control the plane now, as he had flown 747s from time to time. Thompson gave him a hand by sitting as the co-pilot, although he had no experience with jumbo jets, he had flown only single-engine aircrafts.

"Is anybody ok?" Adams asked.

"Yes, we're all fine." Connor replied.

"Haneda tower, this is flight 112 come in." Thompson said to the radio.

"This is flight 112, what's your situation, over?"

"This is A-216 Special force team. We've secured the airplane, with 2 monsters in the belly luggage sector. The rest of them were sucked out of the window, including Kunzite. You'd find him swimming in the Pacific Ocean if he hasn't used his personal dimensional gate." Thompson reported. "I and my pilot are bringing this fat lady home."

"Sucked out of the window? Is there any hole in the airplane?"

"Yes, we've got one, Kunzite broke the window to escape, and he had a parachute. Don't worry, we're at 4,900 feet. You've got to clear the runway ASAP, we're coming in."

"Roger, flight 112 we're clearing the runway." The tower answered. "Have you had any flying experience, Colonel?"

"Paper airplanes, does that count?" Thompson said in sense of humor. "For my pilot, he's the best."

In the battlefield, peace didn't stay long, so with the A-216. The aircraft violently shook once, before the alarm went off. Several warning lights raced to illuminate like a Christmas tree. Everybody tried to figure out what had going on.

"What the hell is that!?" Rogers said through the door. "Answer me, man."

"Er….looks like we've lost the vertical stabilizer." Adams said. "All hydraulics is toasted too. I can't control the plane."

"This make me think of Japan Airlines flight 123 in '85." Thompson said. "They suffered hydraulic failure and crashed into the mountain, 520 but 4 perished. And now we're facing the same problem as they did. But we're Special Force, we can do everything."

Although hated to bring his team into danger, Thompson himself thrived on adventure and the adrenaline-rush of life-threatening situation. He enjoyed every challenge that was thrown against him or his men. Thompson even smiled when in danger, as his cool-headiness in life-threatening incident saved his own life and other for several times, such as in 1988 while Thompson was still a 2nd lieutenant, his New York-L.A. 747 plane was hijacked but he managed to single-handedly overpower 5 hijackers and saved 500 passengers aboard, Thompson later was awarded with Legion of Merit Medal.

Without hydraulics, the aircraft began to fly 'uphill and downhill' or official name, phugoid cycle. Adams realized that he couldn't control the aircraft via the yoke, but he had trained with this situation before with the simulator, and knew that their only control was the engine. The Jackal tried to play with the engine control to keep the plane leveled.

"Haneda Tower, this is Flight 112, hydraulics is toasted, and vertical stabilizer has gone away. We're coming in hot. You've to clear everybody out of the airport area." Thompson said. "Charlie, can you control this?"

"Roughly, sir. But this plane is still in control." Adams replied. "Intel, how much fuel we've got left?"

"10 minutes 40 seconds if we keep flying like this." Intel said. "We'll be at Haneda Airport in 10 minutes."

"That means we've 40 seconds of fuel for nonsensical flying." Adams said. "We should have at least 1 hour in case this plane goes mad and become uncontrollable."

For 747s, using of engine to control the aircraft instead of yoke was quite difficult, especially speed controlling. However, it wasn't beyond the gifted Adams. He glanced at the altimeter and compass to make sure that his plane was in right direction. As the hydraulics had gone, autopilot was absolutely useless.

With Adams's superb controlling, 10 minutes later everybody in the pilot cabin could see a line of concrete way in front of them. It was nothing more than Haneda International airport. All the planes those already on the runway had been brought away. At the end of the runway, several Japanese emergency units were awaiting, their emergency lights were on to tell whoever saw it 'We're on duty'.

"Haneda Tower, this is Flight 112 we're coming in hot, and will land on Runway 34, you can authorize or not, but we're gonna land on it anyway." Adams said.

"Flight 112 this is Haneda Tower, Roger on landing."

"Charlie, be calm. You can make it, just follow your instinct." Thompson said.

"There will be 15 of survival chance." Intel said.

The A-216's aircraft was sinking at 700 feet per minute and flying at 180 knots on approach to the runway, too fast for safe landing, which require 140 knots and 300 feet per minute. As they were unable to control speed independently from sink rate, all the members in the passenger cabin were told to sit and fasten seat belt and try the best to make a safe landing.

Shortly after, the team could feel that the plane landed on the ground, rather heavily, but not brutal enough to damage landing gears at 158 knots and 315 feet per minute. The plane was dropped a little like a car with flattened wheels, before popped back up again. Adams quickly pulled all the throttle control back as much as he could before pedal on the brake. The plane went slower and slower while the speed indicator was turning backward toward 0 knots. Then the plane stopped at the end of the runway, only 200 meters from Tokyo bay.

Adams was so totally stressed with controlling the airplane that his body was totally hardened like a stone statue. His hands were gripping the throttle so hard that he might squeeze it into pieces. Thompson realized that he had to calm him down.

"Adams, that's OK, we made it." Thompson said. "You saved all of us, Lieutenant."

Upon hearing Thompson's word, Adams came back from stressing and looked around him, all of his teammates were still where they had been. The plane itself was still in one piece.

"Phew." Adams sighed and bumped his back to the backrest. "Sir, I request a two minute rest before get out of the plane, sir."

"Permission granted."

The A-216 members rested for two minutes to relieve all of stress and shock out of their heads before opened the main door. As soon as the door opened, all the team could see was a large group of Japanese emergency team that awaiting for them. When the Japanese could see the unscratched Special force, they jubilated and hugged each other in happiness, as they had never seen the successful without-hydraulics landing since tragic Flight 123. Lowe activated an emergency self-inhaled ramp to let his teammates slide down, and Thompson, as the CO, was the first, followed by the rest of the team.

The A-216 seemed to become local celebrities, as several Japanese from emergency units and passengers came and greeted them, some even asked for their autographs, before the units escorted them to the hangar, where the temporary operation HQ was. There General Heinemann came out and greeted the A-216 members.

"Welcome back, The A-Team." General greeted. "Looked like you've become National Heroes, aren't you?"

"Not really, sir." Thompson said. "This may cause us a trouble."

"Don't worry, Colonel, they won't tell anybody."

"Thank you, sir." Thompson said. "Guys, let's go back to the house."

………..

The A-216 House – 1721 hrs

The A-216 members took the rest as usual after the mission, and waiting for Dinner. But they didn't expect that the Sailor Soldiers would come with something special. When the ring rang again, Thompson walked to the door and opened it.

Makoto was standing in front of the house, but she had something in her hand, a white box. So Thompson opened the door to let her and her friends in.

"Good Evening, Makoto." Thompson greeted.

"Good Evening, Col. Thompson." Makoto greeted. "We've heard that you saved a plane and its passengers from the Dark Kingdom, so I've something special for your team."

Rogers, who was curious about Makoto's box, came alongside the rest of the team to the Kitchen, which part of it was the dining room. Makoto laid the box on the table and removed its cover, revealed a pound of brown chocolate cake.

"Wow, it looks so palatable." Adams said.

"I baked it." Makoto said, her face blushed a little.

"Makoto is a very good baker." Minako said. "Doctor, would you like to taste it?"

"Sure, I will."

Mitchell used a knife to cut a little piece from the cake, and took it into his mouth with a spoon. He used a few seconds to taste, but soon found out that it was one of the best. For him, he had never eaten anything so delicious before.

"It's very good." Mitchell said. "Better than anything I have eaten."

"Really?" Rogers said. "Then I'll eat the cake."

After Mitchell's initial tasting, everybody in the room cut the cake into several pieces, 15 pieces for each other, exclude Intel, of course. Because of its delicious, everybody ate it all in less than 10 minutes.

"Unfortunately, I'm an android." Intel said.

"That's OK, Intel. You can imagine how delicious it is." Adams said.

"Imagine? OK, I'll try." Intel said. "Hmm….I can taste it a little."

"It's very good, thanks so much, Makoto." Thompson said. "In return, you'll have a chance to dinner with us, all cooked by Lt. Bacon. Would you agree?"

"Yes!" Makoto replied.

The dinner was cooked by Bacon, of course, as none of his teammates could surpass him, with some assistance from who also excelled in cooking, Makoto. But Bacon still kept his food a secret, so Makoto could do only what he told her to do.

But something had gone wrong a little while the girl was slicing meat. She accidentally sliced her own finger. Blood trickled from the cut and dropped to the ground. Bacon and Mitchell hurled themselves to check if Makoto was alright.

"Just a skin cut, I'll bandage you." Mitchell said. The medic took a sticking plaster from his pocket and gently placed it on Makoto's finger.

"Mako-chan, are you alright?" Ami said. "You're bleeding."

"That's fine. Doctor dressed the cut for me."

Makoto walked back to help Bacon cooked the meal like the accident had never happen until finished. Then they brought all the food on the table, they were all covered so nobody would know what it was. The A-216 members had the same food from a big pot, but the Sailor Soldiers acquired in individual dishes.

"Alright, open it." Bacon said.

When the Sailor Soldiers opened the covers, their eyes opened wide in surprise, as the food was their favorite, Meatloaf for Makoto, Curry rice for Minako, Sweet soup for Usagi, Fugu for Rei, and Sandwiches for Ami, which he put several healthy ingredients into them to increased overall nutrient to meet body's requirements. They didn't believe that Bacon, who they had known for only a few days, would know about their favorite food.

"How do you know about our favorite food?" Minako asked.

"Er…..Our Intelligence report told us." Bacon said. "You may feel uncomfortable that we know about you too much, but we have to do to help you."

"That's alright Mr. Bacon, you and your friends are good men." Ami said.

"Ami, I've heard that you love reading so much, so you can borrow my books anytime." Westernhagen said.

"Thanks so much, Mr. Westernhagen." Ami replied.

After a wonderful meal, the Sailor soldiers had to go back to their house for resting, so they said goodbye to Thompson and his A-216 before left the house. The team then came back to clean up their kitchen.

While Mitchell was cleaning the table, he saw something on it, a white handkerchief. He wondered who this thing belonged to, as none of his teammates use this kind. The doctor examined the handkerchief closely and then saw a name embroidered to it 'Makoto Kino'.

"Sir!" Mitchell called. "We've a lost thing here."

"What?" Thompson asked.

"This, sir." Mitchell replied and showed Thompson the handkerchief.

"OK, then you, Charlie, Philip, go to her apartment and return this thing to her." Thompson said.

"Yes, sir."

Adams and Rogers broke off the cleaning and rushed to the GMC van that parked beside the house. They jumped into it quickly and streaked the van off, heading to Makoto's apartment.

Only 5 minutes after departed from the house, the van arrived at the apartment. Adams and Rogers parked the van in front of the building and then jumped off and rushed inside.

"Charlie, which room does she live?" Rogers asked.

"Room 412, 4th floor." Adams replied.

They used the elevator to go up to the destination. As it was late night, most of the apartment inhabitants had already fallen asleep. Adams and Rogers expected for quick returning and then go back home because they were rather tired. But when Adams was walking out of the elevator, he saw a man doing something with a door, lockpicking. The Jackal then quickly held Rogers, who was about to get out of the elevator back inside.

"What's wrong, man?" Rogers asked. 

"I see a man, lockpicking a door."

"Oh c'mon, he may forget his key and trying to get into his own room!"

"But THAT is Makoto's room."

"What?"

"He may be the burglar that I saw in a newspaper." Adams said. "We've to do something, although Makoto is strong and good at fighting, but she's still a girl, anything can happen."

"So what will you do?"

"Just follow me."

Adams retreated to stairs beside the elevator and walked upstairs as quiet as possible. Rogers, who still wondered about Adams's plan, reluctantly followed. When he reached upstairs, Rogers found that Adams was standing exactly a floor above Makoto's room.

As the apartment had a long open balcony, Adams could use it as his advantage. The Jackal pulled a rope from his pocket and tied it to a balcony's concrete pillar. He looked at stunning Rogers and shook his face to call him there.

Rogers didn't know that to do but followed Adams. He tied his own rope to another pillar and then climbed off the balcony. They waited for a while to make sure that the man was still there, and he actually was.

Before the man could notice that there was a Special Force out there, Adams and Rogers quickly rappelled from the 5th floor to the 4th and threw themselves into the 4th floor balcony, shoved the man from his feet. The Jackal quickly got on the top and tied the man's hand with a plastic handcuff. The man struggled a lot to escape, but Adams could overpower him with the training.

"You've the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court. You've the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, we'll provide one for ya." Rogers said.

While Adams was tying the man's hands, the captive bawled a lot, caused the entire floor's inhabitants to open their doors to see what was going on, including Makoto as well.

"Hello, Makoto." Adams greeted.

"Hello, Lt. Adams. What are you doing here?" Makoto, in pajamas, asked.

"Er….you forgot this handkerchief at our house, so we come and return it to you." Rogers said and gave Makoto her handkerchief.

"Thank you." Makoto replied.

"OK, that's it. We'll leave this guy here and let the security do the rest. Charlie, let's go home. Good night, Mako-chan." Rogers said.

Rogers and Adams didn't stay for long. They quickly leaped for the elevator and rode it down to the 1st floor before extracted safely from the area. Although Adams didn't want to extract too quick, but as there was nothing more to do there, he didn't see why he had to stay there.

For the A-216 members, this was one of unforgettable memories, as they had improved relationship between them and the Sailors. However, the Dark Kingdom was planning a new plan out there, unless it was destroyed, the Team had to continue their struggle.

…………………..


	8. Gas Attack!

Chapter VIII – Gas Attack!

The A-216 house, 17 February 1993 – 1520 hrs

The A-216 team still followed their SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) of the day, eating, intercepting, and waiting for some kind of distress call. Defort was listening to the radio, and changed frequency from General Heinemann's Task group HQ at Okinawa to various authorities, nothing unusual.

"You get anything?" Thompson asked, in his each hand had a cup of iced coffee. He had known about Adams and Rogers' action yesterday. Although that would jeopardize the team's mission and the team itself, Thompson thought that his men had done the right thing.

"Still nothing, sir."

"This is coffee for you, Lieutenant." Thompson said and gave Defort the coffee.

"Thank you, sir."

"Strike, this is Eagle East Base, do you copy, over?"

Defort quickly responded to the radio contact, as the callsign was General Heinemann's base.

"Eagle East Base, this is Strike, we're here."

"We've got a Gas Attack in Tokyo subway. Non-lethal though, but caused everybody inside fell asleep, looked like the energy gathering plan. I've sent my men there. Better gear yourselves for NBC protection."

"Roger that, Eagle East Base, we'll be there in 10 minutes, out."

Thompson quickly rushed to the living room, where his teammates were. There he found them playing with each other, watching TV, reading books etc.

"We've got a Gas attack in Tokyo subway. Prepare yourselves for NBC warfare in 5 minutes." Thompson said, shocking his men a little.

"Gas! Gas! Gas! Move it! Move it!" Rogers yelled.

Upon hearing Rogers's word, everybody in the room swiftly jumped off the room like their own house was under attack. The A-216 team had no own NBC protection equipment, so they had to rush for the armory, which served as the Quartermaster depot as well.

The US Army NBC protection gear consisted of special NBC black/white camouflaged suit that concealed the entire body, and M42 gas mask. The well-trained soldiers could gear them up in 5 minutes, as the suit was quite fit and complicated to wear, but they were glad to make sure that their suit had no gap that let the gas through. Wearing the mask changed voice a little too.

"Luke, Come over to the dark side." Rogers, first completed gearing, said to Defort, in low, husky tone, almost similar to the recognizable Darth Vader's voice.

"No, I won't join the Dark side, and I'll stab you with my lightsaber, Lord Vader."

While the A-216 members were busying gearing up, the ring rang again. They didn't expect for General Heinemann because they had already make a radio contact. However, Thompson ordered Rogers to go see who came to their house.

"Rogers, go see who ring the bell."

"Yes, sir." Rogers said and walked away, and murmured a little. "Open up, Doorman."

Rogers, in NBC suit, walked to the door and looked through the tiny hole. He saw Makoto and Usagi standing at the other side, behind them were Rei, Ami, and Minako. The A-216's engineer grabbed the doorknob and twisted it before pulled the door.

Usagi and Makoto expected Thompson to open the door, but when they saw Rogers, in a gas protection suit like a kind of alien, which they had never seen before, they screamed loudly in shock. Usagi was worse, after she screamed for 3 seconds, she fell down to the ground, fainted.

……….

Usagi groggily opened her eyes after saw the most frightening thing in her life. She found herself on a sofa in the A-216's living room, surrounded by her friends, and Mitchell, who was in protection suit, but unmasked. Her legs were pillowed high by two pillows to help blood circulating to her brain.

"Where am I?" Usagi croaked. "And who's that alien?"

Mitchell giggled upon hearing Usagi's question. He knew well that Rogers was the only one went to open the door.

"At our house, that alien is Rogers. We're in NBC suits."

"What's going on?" Makoto asked.

"We've a gas attack in Tokyo subway, don't you hear that?" Mitchell said. "You can go there now, we'll follow you."

"Right, let's go." Rei said. "Usagi, are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm OK." Usagi replied and stood up on her feet.

After the Sailor Soldiers went to the subway, the A-216 members had to bug out too. But they had lost time in treating Usagi, too much for land transportation. Thompson had to rush back to the radio and called somebody that General Heinemann had placed them at his disposal.

Shortly after, a rapidly noise could be heard from outside. The A-216 could recognize that it was UH-60 Black Hawk rotor. They rushed out of the house to plain land next to their house, which was the only suitable LZ for helicopters. They didn't have to wait for long. A black-colored UH-60 soon appeared and landed safely at the LZ, letting the team to get aboard.

"Good Afternoon, sir." Konichek greeted.

"Good Afternoon, Major."

Maj. Steven 'Crazy Steve' Konichek, a 30-year-old Major from Atlanta, Georgia, was a highly-skilled helicopter pilot. He was famous for almost fanatically training, Konichek trained everyday, even in Sunday. He also got a lot of battle experience in Operation Urgent Fury (US Invasion of Grenada) in 1983, Operation Just Cause, 1989 (Invasion of Panama, overthrowing Manuel Noriega's regime) and recently in 1991, Operation Desert Storm, along with his long-time buddy, Capt. James 'Cobra' Crandall, 30.

After all the members of the A-216 were aboard, Konichek pulled the collective control beside his seat up to increase torque, the only force that helped the helicopter lifted up. When the torque was up to 100, the main rotor started lifting its fuselage to the air. But as the rotor was spinning, the fuselage would spin in opposite direction, so the thing that prevented the uncontrollable spinning was the tail rotor. The pilot could increase or decrease the tail rotor's RPM to yaw the helicopter.

When the altimeter indicated that they are at 200 feet above sea level, Konichek decreased the collector to reduce some excessive torque and pushed a stick between his legs forward, driving his helicopter forward.

"Konichek, are the Sailors there?"

"Yes, they're already there, sir." Konichek replied. "The monsters released gas in a subway train. They've stopped it and seal the area for us and the Sailor soldiers."

"Good."

10 minutes later, the chopper arrived on the scene. There were several German tanks and soldiers securing the station. Passengers were evacuating out of the station as the SOP in Chemical attack, evacuating everybody ASAP.

Konichek and Crandall flew the UH-60 above the station before decreased the torque to descend the chopper. It slowly descended until its landing gear touched the ground. Then Thompson and his team hopped off the chopper to the station. General Heinemann was already there with his chief of staff, each officer was armed with pistols, and the only one who armed with battle rifle was General Heinemann himself, with StG44 Assault Rifle.

"Welcome, gentlemen." General Heinemann said. "We've evacuated all passengers in the entire line, except in the train. The Sailors are going in."

"Alright, let's go in."

The team rushed into the station, down the stairs to its underground part. Nothing usual here as every subway stations in Tokyo would be crowded for all the time, but today, nobody here.

"It should be in Guinness book." Rogers said.

"Why?" Westernhagen asked.

"The most silently station in the world."

"Stop that chatter, children. The Intel told us that the train is inside this tunnel, between us and the next. Intel, Is they cut off the electricity yet?" Thompson said.

"Yes, sir." Intel replied.

After ensured that the rail's power was offline, the team advanced into the tunnel. However, they did walk on a sideway. As the tunnel was relatively dark and the team couldn't use Night Vision Goggles as they were already had gas masks covering their face, so the team had to use flashlights instead.

They navigated along the tunnel until the team found the stopped train. Thompson ordered his men to scatter and examine the train. It was totally quiet like nobody was there. Kunzite would no longer be there as well.

Thompson peered through a window into the train. He found all the passengers of the train fell unconscious in various places, scattered on the floor and on the seats.

"Intel, how is the air here?"

"Full of invisible strange gas, sir." Intel replied while reading his Palm OS-sized scanner. "I've never seen this type before. But this scanner tells that everybody who inhales this gas will fall asleep."

"So, it has to come from the Dark Kingdom, doesn't it?" Rogers said.

"Alright, let's find out how to gain access." Thompson said.

Although the train's doors had an override system for manually opening, the team simply broke some windows with their rifles before climbed into the train. Thompson decided to check the train from back to forth, if they found no hostile, he would request the power to drive this train back to the station where they came from.

Their weapons were readied as usual even in relatively calm situation, as nobody never thought that everything would go smoothly, in this case, it was quite too smoothly. Thompson and his men checked the train and passengers until they reached the foremost sector. They still found nothing but unconscious passengers and crews.

"General told us that the Sailors are here. I don't see one." Defort said.

"Yeah, I wonder too." Adams said.

Thompson opened the front door with an emergency handle before walked away from the train to examine the overall situation. He pointed his flashlight around the tunnel to find a kind of escape that Kunzite used. German soldiers who secured the next station reported no contact, meant that Kunzite and the Sailors were around here.

Thompson didn't wonder at all when the light illuminated a makeshift manhole above his head. He didn't hear fighting noise from above, but he thought that the Sailors were up there.

"Gentlemen, guess what we found?"

"Wow, a manhole, sir." Connor said. "Should we go up?"

"Sure, why not?"

Fortunately for the team as there was a ladder nearby. Lowe and Defort quickly carried it and put it to the manhole. Then Westernhagen, as the pointman, climbed it first, followed by Thompson and the rest of the team.

By the way, exposing his head wasn't a good idea as there was something else that could do that instead, so Westernhagen took a fiber optic camera, which was used wildly in SWAT team, from Rogers and raised it up above the manhole to see what was going on up there. As he saw in a monitor that connected to the camera, nothing was up there but a dark, empty room.

The A-216's pointman popped up the manhole and swept his eyes and rifle around in 360 degrees before swiftly jumped off the manhole and rushed to a door. His teammates followed and secured the area.

"Where are the Sailors?" Defort whispered.

"Shh……I think I hear them." Westernhagen said. "They are not far from us."

Westernhagen followed the noise into the 2 next rooms. There the team found the Sailor soldiers walking away from them. They didn't notice the A-216 members as their own Special Force nature that didn't often expose themselves.

The Sailor Soldiers had found the manhole and came up to a deserted building. They didn't see both monsters and the Special Force, so the Sailors decided to observe this place. But they didn't notice that there was a monster followed them. It came up behind the Sailors and about to attack the magical girls, only to be shot down by Thompson, with his suppressed M9 pistol, the optional secondary sidearm alongside the Colt M1911A1. The Sailors turned back and they saw the CO of the A-216 team and his men came from a corner.

"Do you mind if I tag you?" Rogers said.

"You're welcome." Sailor Jupiter said. "You are late, Colonel."

"Not so late." Thompson replied. "Intel, what does your scanner say?"

Before Intel could respond, several energy boomerangs were thrown against the team, caused them to take cover, while the Sailors simply used their powers to destroy the boomerangs.

Kunzite appeared with several monsters in front of the Sailor soldiers. One of them was distinct; it had a barrel-like characteristic with arms and legs. Even ordinary men could tell that this monster was the sleeping gas creator, and the energy collector.

"Kunzite, return the gathered energy to the passengers, or I'll punish you." Sailor Moon said.

"If you want the energy, give me your Silver Crystal, Princess Serenity." Kunzite replied. "Or I have to use some brutal methods. Barrel! Fill this room with gas!"

"Yes, master."

The monster released gas from its two metal chimneys on the head. It wasn't sleeping gas but the toxic one. The Sailor soldiers, who had no protection against the gas choked as they were inhaled the gas directly into their lungs. Barrel could control the gas, so it kept the gas away from itself and Kunzite while concentrating it on the Sailor soldiers.

As the Sailors' lungs were filled with gas instead of air, they were suffocated to the point that couldn't use any magical power and collapsed to the ground. Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter, who had some strength left, shot their fire and lightning bolts at Both Barrel and Kunzite, but they were all deflected by Kunzite's power.

The A-216 team was unaffected by the gas as they had NBC protection. They saw that the Sailors were in trouble. Thompson decided that they had to intervene. He turned his face to Vostrikov and ordered him without voice.

"Hey, Comrade Kunzite." Vostrikov said. "I've got a present for ya."

Kunzite looked pass the Sailors to the entrance of this room. He saw Vostrikov in full NBC protection suit standing there, and aiming his RPG-7 at him. Without any prior notice, Vostrikov pulled the trigger and sent the warhead at Barrel. Kunzite was fortunate that he could dodge the RPG, but Barrel wasn't, it took the warhead and was blown away to the wall. It hit the wall so hard that its body was ruptured.

Thompson didn't give valuable time for the monsters, he ordered Bacon to provide another explosive weapon. Bacon then aimed an M203 grenade launcher, which was attached under the M4A1's barrel. His index finger reached for the M203's trigger and pulled it, sent a 40mm HE grenade to Kunzite. The grenade streaked through the air and exploded near Kunzite. Although he could defend himself against the bomb, his cape was partially torn.

As Barrel didn't release more gas after its body was ruptured, the gas began fading away to the point that the Sailors were able to fight again. Then the monster truly fell in trouble because now they were attacked by fire souls, supreme thunder, and more, until Barrel itself decided to charge toward Sailor Moon.

"Moon Tiara!"

In the meantime that Sailor Moon released her Moon Tiara, Vostrikov and Bacon also fired their RPG-7 and M203 at the monster. Barrel took all three weapons and blew up so forcefully that shook the entire building, left nothing but thick gas curtain behind.

Kunzite gnashed in anger as his plan was again foiled. But there was nothing he could do but escape from the building. Fortunately for him, the smoke screen was too thick for the A-216 team to detect Kunzite. The Shitennou once again escaped safely.

Although the battle was over, it left consequences. The fighting inflicted several damages to the building's infrastructure. It began shaking a little like there was an earthquake. Debris began falling down upon the Sailors and the Special Force. While the Sailor Soldiers knew nothing about the Situation, the team knew very well that the building was going to collapse.

"It's gonna fall down on us!" Rogers yelled.

"OK, guys. Let's get out of here, Move!" Thompson ordered.

Mitchell quickly grabbed Sailor Mercury's hand and dragged her while running. Everybody else rushed quickly on their feet to escape. The team never trained in this situation before, but their survival instinct helped them a lot, as well as Adrenaline that rushing inside their bodies.

As they were in the first floor of the building, the team and the Sailors could make it out. However, they didn't stop running until they were 300m from the building. Then Thompson turned back and watched the building began collapsing down on the ground, left nothing but a pile of rubble behind.

"Phew, that's close." Connor said.

"Are you OK?"

"Yes, we're fine." Sailor Moon said.

Thompson then looked at his men, nobody lost. But everybody stared at Vostrikov as he was the most destructive soldier in the team. In his almost every mission ended with blowing buildings down to the ground.

"It's not me, Comrade."

"But YOU are in that place, man. Don't you remember your own working style, 'Blow everything in the way, the havoc will be anywhere I go'?" Rogers said.

Before the argument went worse, several noises could be heard from behind, drew everybody's attention. They saw a lot of German APCs and soldiers coming at them, led by General Heinemann's Volkswagen. The General himself parked the car near Thompson and jumped off his car to ask the A-216's CO.

"The energy collector is destroyed, sir." Thompson reported. "But Kunzite escaped, once again."

"Sounds like he's excelled in running." General Heinemann replied. "How are the Sailors?"

"They're fine, sir." Thompson said before turned back to the building. "That building is quite expensive, and now it's gone. So what can we do, sir?"

"That's OK. That building was a laboratory, but has abandoned since 1974. The Japanese is going to raze it anyway. They said thanks to you that helped them destroy the building. Good job, soldier."

"Thank you, sir."

As everything seemed smooth and all the mess was over, something terrible happened to Sailor Moon. Kunzite hadn't actually leave the place but waited for attack, when he saw that everybody there wasn't in alert status, the general quickly appeared from nowhere and summoned an energy ball before sent it to Sailor Moon.

The ball's purpose wasn't to kill, though. It engulfed Sailor Moon's body and then flew away amidst the German Armed Force's surprise. The German soldier tried to react by chasing the ball, but it quickly vanished. It didn't fly beyond visual range, just disappeared. Sailor Moon screamed aloud but her voice didn't pass through the ball.

"Sailor Moon!" Sailor Mercury yelled.

"Kunzite, give her back to us!" Sailor Jupiter said.

"Never." Kunzite replied before flew up to the sky.

After Kunzite had gone, everything returned to its peaceful condition except the soldiers. The Sailor soldiers were so upset that they were supposed to protect Sailor Moon, and they were helplessly when she was kidnapped. But for General Heinemann and the A-216 members, it was another emotion.

"Gentlemen, let's go to the Task Force HQ." General Heinemann said. "We'll be able to do anything better if we're there."

"Yes, sir." Thompson replied. "Ladies, thanks for cooperation, but from now is military business."

"No way!" Sailor Mars said. "Sailor Moon is our friend, and we won't leave her."

"She may be a rather annoying person, but she is a very good friend. Please, Colonel, let us go with you." Sailor Mercury begged.

"OK, hop in." Thompson reluctantly replied. He didn't want the Sailors to go with him as the Sailors were still teenage girls. And Kunzite would use some psychological war to exploit them and let their lives at extreme risk.

The Sailor soldiers got in a Hanomag Sd.Kfz. 251, the true German halftrack with the A-216 members. As the halftrack had capacity of only 10 persons, inside it was rather overcrowded, but the Special Force was true gentlemen. Mitchell was the first one who gave up his seat to Sailor Mercury and got up on an Sd.Kfz.3 Maultier which parked nearby and had some free seats, followed by Lowe, Intel, Connor and Adams.

After the unit was ready to move, General Heinemann, who was sitting in the same Volkswagen Type 82 stood up on his seat and gave a signal to the crew to advance back to the base. All of Daimler-Benz engines growled simultaneously before provided power to their vehicles, before the unit started moving back to the street. The Sailors wondered a little about where the unit was heading to, as they were moving out-bound.

……………


	9. Daring Rescue I

Chapter IX – Daring Rescue I

Somewhere outside Tokyo, 16 February 1993 – 1800 hrs

The German unit had been on wheel for almost an hour, and they were in outskirt of Tokyo. In front of them was nothing but wilderness as the unit was leaving one of the most crowded city in Japan. The sun was setting, and it would pass away soon.

The Sailors had been sitting for long, so they stood up and looked around them, trying to find the destination. They saw nothing at the first place, but Sailor Venus could see a little white light at the horizon, and it was moving.

"Everyone, I see a light." Sailor Venus said, drew her friends' attention.

"Where?" The Sailors asked.

"There."

As the unit went closer to the light that Sailor Venus had seen, the light turned out to be a manned spotlight on one of the posts that surveyed the surrounding area outside a white concrete wall that formed a large box. They didn't know that this was the Task Force HQ that commanded all activities in Japan to defeat the Dark Kingdom, commanded by Major General Heinemann.

There were 2 German sentries guarding outside the large metal gate of the base. As they saw General Heinemann's car coming at them, they gave a signal to the gate control to open it. The gate slowly descended down into the ground, opened the way for the unit.

The Sailor soldiers were stunned after they saw the base's interior. There were a lot of activities there. Soldiers running around, the tank crew was maintaining tanks, sentries guarding their posts. This base had its own airfield inside the wall, so there were several planes and helicopters parking near an airfield.

While the rest of the unit parked their vehicles at the barracks, the Sailor's halftrack parked in front of the main HQ, led by General Heinemann. They quickly got off the vehicle and followed the General into a big, well-decorated building, which served as the HQ.

The Headquarter wasn't so crowded because there were only few officers working here. General Heinemann led the Sailor soldiers and the A-216 members to his office, which was deep inside the building. He opened the office door and walked inside, directly to a desk and brought something from it to Thompson, a few photos.

"What's this, sir?" Thompson asked as he looked at the photos. It was something big, stony building that floating in the air, seemed to be a kind of castle.

"It's Kunzite's flying castle, actually it belongs to Kunzite's minion. The firstly fine photos come from Rodriguez. The fuzzier photos were from satellite." General Heinemann said. "There are some drawbacks in our operation. I requested a satellite for the operation from the Federal Forces, and then what? They gave me an incredibly outdated Russian Sputnik satellite!"

"Where do you get these, sir?"

"This afternoon it was flying outside Tokyo, and last seen near Kanazawa 1 hour ago. After calculated the course, we find that it's heading north."

"Are you sure that Usa….Sailor Moon is there?" Sailor Mercury asked.

"We won't sure yet, but probably. I ordered the satellite control to take additional photos. They should have finished it now."

After General finished his sentence, the door opened and somebody quickly rushed inside the office. He was in a Russian military uniform and had an insignia of 2nd lieutenant on his both shoulders, with additional insignia that indicated his job. He was an intelligence officer. There were some photos in his right hand.

"Sir, we've got more photos as you ordered, sir." He said and handed General the photos.

General Heinemann was disappointed a little that none of the pictures had Kunzite in them. But after carefully looked, he saw something in one of the photos. It looked like a stain coming out of the castle's window, but it couldn't be wiped out.

"What the hell is this stain?" General Heinemann said.

"Let me look at it, sir." Intel said and got the photo as he requested.

The A-216's intelligence officer looked at the photo. For everybody else, he was freezing, but inside his head had a million of calculations. Intel was searching his own massive database to explain the mysterious stain in the photo.

"It's a kind of energy, sir." Intel replied. "It must be powerful in order to be photographed. After calculated the time and compared with other photographs, it is the Silver Crystal, sir."

"The Silver Crystal!" Sailor Jupiter said. "Sailor Moon is up there!"

"I've arranged the rescue unit for the upcoming operation, which will be designated as 'Operation Archangel' they're the 7th Regiment of the US Army 1st Cavalry Division. They've come here yesterday." General Heinemann said. "Although they have ceased their air mobile capability, they are only fast-moving unit in my base. Along with a fleet of UH-1Ds those we already have, looks like the Air cavalry is resurrected."

"But you can't bring the rescue team there in such a noisy helicopter, sir." Thompson protested.

"Right, so they're the distraction and your heavy backup in case the plan goes awry. You and the Sailor soldiers will go aboard a C-130 and make a HALO parachuting to the castle. After that the AirCav will start their operation. After you get Sailor Moon, the choppers will go back and extract all of you guys out of there, and then my fighters and bombers will bomb the hell out of it. Alright, what're you waiting for? She doesn't have much time, let's move out, Gentlemen."

The A-216 members walked out of the HQ to the armory to re-supply the unit first. They had used so much ammunition, although it didn't even drain Rogers's bottomless backpack. But somebody needed something more suitable for the close-combat operation.

"Charlie, you don't have to bring that AWM up there, you'd not get a chance for long-range shooting." Thompson said when he saw Adams still had the AWM sniper rifle slung on his back.

"And what should I bring, sir?"

"Here, you can take mine." Bacon said and threw his own M4A1 to Adams. "I'm fed up with this tiny rifle. It's time for something bigger."

After relinquished his rifle to Adams, Bacon looked at something bigger as he said, which was racked on a weapon rack. It was black, streamlined, big assault rifle that was designed by the Belgians, Fabrique Nationale Company. This rifle had a computerized fire system attached on its top and considered hi-tech as it was the Belgian OICW program; FN2000 assault rifle (became available in 2001).

Bacon, who tended to use hi-tech weapons, quickly grabbed the big rifle without any hesitation. He checked the computerized system like he was familiar with this system, although he had no training with this rifle.

"Time to rock 'n' roll, sir." Bacon said.

"Yeah, it's time man. Let's go kick 'em." Rogers said.

They marched to the airstrip, where the C-130 was ready for them. Beside it was a fleet of Vietnam War-era UH-1D Iroquois or called 'Huey'. The crew was rushing to get aboard their choppers and warmed the engines. Their two-blade main rotors created a loud noise that it could wake a sleeping man two miles away up.

Parachuting, both HALO and HAHO was a basic skill for the Special Forces. But there was a problem with one of the Sailors, Sailor Jupiter or Makoto Kino. As she had lost her parents in a plane crash, Makoto became scared of planes and refused to take any air transportation, even scared anytime an airplane flew overhead. Sailor Jupiter was extremely nervous when she saw the C-130.

"Are we going in there?" Sailor Jupiter said. "No, no, I can't."

"You can, please, for Usagi." Sailor Mercury said.

"No! Colonel, isn't there alternate way to bring us up there?" Sailor Jupiter said. "Oh, I'm rather thirsty."

"Mako-chan, drink my water." Thompson said and gave Sailor Jupiter his water canteen.

Sailor Jupiter took the canteen from Thompson and drank it a lot. But The A-216's CO had put something into it. As he was the A-Team fan, Thompson had watched the A-Team used several methods to bring B.A.Baracus, who feared of flying, such as drugging, hypnotizing or simply hitting, and he knew that he had Makoto as B.A. and Thompson chose the first method. The thing he had put into the canteen was a grinded sleeping pill. Actually Thompson utterly hated to do this, but it was the only way to get her aboard.

As the drug became active inside Sailor Jupiter's body, she began feeling dizzy and couldn't walk straight while she was trying to walk back to the HQ.

"Colonel, I feel so…..dizzy." Sailor Jupiter said before fell limp on Thompson, who quickly rushed to catch her body before hit the ground, completely unconscious.

Although Sailor Jupiter was considered tall and heavy by Japanese standard, Thompson was strong enough to carry her body on his shoulder and brought her aboard, followed by his men and the remaining Sailors.

Inside the C-130 was a big, empty cargo area. There was a cargo crew standing inside and helped the team strapping Makoto's body on a seat, before the crew walked to the cockpit to tell the pilot that everything was ready.

"Everything is ready." The crew reported.

"Right, tell them to enjoy the ride, and take care of the sleeping beauty." The pilot replied.

The pilot pulled the flap lever down to fully extract it before applied some power to the engine to taxi the plane to the concrete airstrip. But they wouldn't want their plane to go too fast or they would end up crashed into something in the base. The plane sluggishly ran to the end of the airstrip then stopped for take-off clearance.

"Tower, this is Cargo One, request a takeoff, over."

"Roger that, Cargo one. We're clear for takeoff, good hunting, over."

"Affirmative, out."

The pilot started the showtime by pushing the throttle to 'full' position. All of 4 engines roared aloud before the plane began slowly ran forward on the strip until reached takeoff speed, and then the pilot pulled the yoke toward their bodies to rise the plane up into the sky.

Meanwhile, the UH-1 fleet started their business. It was under the command of Maj. Brian 'Serpent' Crandall, 47. He was Capt. James Crandall's elder brother, and a Vietnam War veteran. Crandall the elder had flown with the 7th Cavalry Regiment 'Garry Owen' in Nam for several years, and continued flying after the war was over.

Crandall the elder checked his chopper's system to make sure that it was operational under the cooperation of his co-pilot. Then he pulled the collective control up to increase torque. The UH-1 slowly ascending before pitched the nose a little to let the vertical lift pushed it forward, heading north. The rest of the fleet began taking off as well.

The fleet could bring only 1/3 of the regiment, which had total strength of 360 men. That meant the first 120 men had to stay alone for at least half an hour until the second wave would be delivered.

Not only the choppers who operated in this mission. The German aerial fighters were also in full combat alert status. They quickly dressed themselves and rushed to their planes, mostly WWII-era Messerschmitt BF-109G, another handful Focke-Wulf FW109, and 15 Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers. General Heinemann could choose something newer, though, but he preferred the WWIIs as they didn't require a lengthy airfield to take off.

Capt. Erich Hartmann, 23, from Germany, who was in charge of the fighter wing, quickly hopped into his plane and started the engine, he checked every gauge and meter as the SOP to make sure that his plane was perfect. Hartmann grasped a stick between his legs before pushed the throttle forward.

Hartmann was one of the most gifted pilots of the German Air Force, although his career began with difficulties. He had usually wasted ammunition and hit nothing but air in Simulator and hadn't flown in formation at all. But later he became more and more proficient and quickly promoted to Captain with only 23 years old, and this would be his first combat mission.

The mission of the German planes was to suppress any air defense of the flying castle if it had and threatened the mission, so they must be the first that would go there. With lack of on board radar, Hartmann had to rely on AWACS, which was flying above 25,000ft to guide him and his wingmen to the destination.

The BF109s flew past the C-130 and the UH-1s in wing formation as the AWACS told them for almost 15 minutes before Hartmann, who could see a tiny black spot far away. He wondered if that would be the flying castle that he had been looking for, so he decided to ask the AWACS.

"Eagle Eye, this is Karaya One. See something in the front, is that the flying castle? over."

"Karaya One, this is Eagle Eye, you're looking at the flying castle, confirmed, over."

"Roger that, out." Hartmann replied before tuned the communication frequency into the internal. "Boys, it is Showtime."

"Roger that, Karaya One, engaging."

"Roger that, Karaya One, unleash hell!"

The voice of Hartmann's wingmen came out of his headphone one-by-one, indicated that they were ready for inciting an attack. The BF109s became the spearhead and flew directly to the flying castle. Its silhouette became bigger and bigger until everybody could see it quite clearly.

The BF109s didn't meet any resistance at the first place, so they would attack first. Hartmann, who was flying well above the castle, pushed the stick forward to pitch his plane down. The BF109 began diving and its speed quickly increasing. After placed the gunsight toward the castle, Hartmann pulled the trigger to activate the two wing-mounted 13mm and a 20mm machineguns. Two lines of tracer bullets streaked down from the guns and collided with the castle's stone wall, creating some yellow sparks as they plunged into it.

As Hartmann's fighters made the initial attack, the castle began shooting back at them with several blasters those installed in various places. Purple lasers streaked around the castle in all directions, but none of the BFs took any hit. They even came back and strafed some visible blaster emplacements, suppressed them permanently.

"Eagle Eye, this is Karaya One, bring the zapper in."

"Roger that, Karaya One, the zapper is underway."

The BF109s quickly scattered away from the castle, gave a new unit a room for action. The Ju-87 Stukas quickly dived from the cloud curtain above the target toward the castle. Each bomber had a siren attached to its belly, created an ear-piercing scream as they dived with high speed. However, diving too fast reduced accuracy, so the Stukas had dive brakes to reduce vertical speed.

As the Ju-87s came close enough, bomber pilots dropped their powerful weapon. They had several 1000kg bombs those attached to the planes by special-designed pylons, which would 'hurl' the bombs pass under the planes' propellers. The bombs were released from the planes and fell directly to the castle, created a lot of explosion.

"Wow, the fireworks are greater than the American national day!" A bomber pilot said.

"That won't damage the castle's infrastructure as it was quite too strong for the bombs. But we can suppress some of AAs anyway." The Stuka leader said. "Boys, let's go home and let the fighters and ground force do their business."

"Copy that!" The bomber pilots said.

No more bombs to drop, no more business for the Stukas. They fleetly broke off the contact and headed back to the base, although they doubted that they would have time for the second attack as the Special Force would have completed the mission while they were rearming at the base.

"Alright, all units, hold your fire, the ground force is coming in!" Hartmann told his men.

………….

While the Luftwaffe stopped their attack for the insertion, the C-130 came in. The A-216 members had sat tight on the aircraft for a long time. Sailor Jupiter, who was leaning against Thompson slowly opened her eyes and looked around her. The first noise that entered her ears was engine noise, which realized her that she was on a plane.

"Colonel, we're on the plane!" Sailor Jupiter became nervous. "Please get me out of here!"

"We're getting out of the plane." Thompson replied. "Be patient, how much time before the jumping?"

"One minute, sir!" The cargo crew replied.

The cargo crew rushed for the aft door switch and pulled the lever. The aft door slowly opened and revealed the team a way to jump off. Sailor Jupiter felt more nervous when she realized that they would jump through this exit, but before she could do anything, Thompson quickly grabbed her body and strapped her to his own body, Sailor Mercury with Mitchell, Venus with Adams, and Mars with Intel.

"If anybody doesn't want to go with your parachuting partner, you can come with me." Rogers said.

"Knock it off, Rogers. You would give them a heart attack" Defort replied.

"Prepare for jumping!"

The A-216 members stared at a green light beside the aft door, waiting it to illuminate, meant that they could jump off the plane. As it illuminated, the A-team quickly rushed off the plane and let their bodies fell freely toward the ground. Rogers was the most exotic jumper, as he streaked out like a dart and rolled for two times. Defort was right that he hadn't let any Sailor to jump with him.

The Sailors seemed to have some troubles with their first parachuting, especially Sailor Jupiter, who became extremely nervous and let out loud scream. But after getting used to the freefalling, combined with their partners' stable falling, scare changed to excitement. The Sailors began enjoying the probably most beautiful scenery ever seen.

However, no time for enjoying, Thompson watched the altimeter and realized that he had only a few seconds left before he had to open the chute, and shortly after the castle appeared to his eyes. He pulled the cord and let the parachute activate. The leading chute popped out of the bag and pulled the main parachute out. The main ram-air chute and its owner jerked as it pocketed the air and decreased Thompson's vertical speed.

His men operated the same procedure and drifted slowly toward the castle, which was badly battered, but still airworthy. The A-216 members landed safely on the castle. They cut their parachutes off as nobody would drag it around the battlefield. The members who had the Sailors with them freed the girls to make the Special Force more mobile.

"Nice landing, Comrade." Vostrikov said.

"Parachuting isn't all bad, is it?" Rogers asked the Sailors.

"Not really, my heart is still pounding a little." Sailor Jupiter replied.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, secure that chatter for a while. Sailor Moon's safety is our first concern, so West, find the entrance."

"Yes, sir."

As the team had no blueprint of the castle, they had to rely on Westernhagen's superb tracking skill. The A-216's Pointman slowly strolled around the outer perimeter to find the entrance, and he found one, a big, wooden gate stood in front of him.

"It's here, sir. Will we go in?"

"Wait for the AirCav." Thompson said. "We're gonna need a solid backup."

The Air Cavalry arrived the castle sooner than Thompson had expected, but still in the timeline. The choppers emerged from the clouds and hovered down to the castle one-by-one, as the largest area available on the flying castle was large enough for only one chopper.

As the choppers landed, several American soldiers from the 7th Cavalry regiment of the 1st division jumped off to the castle. The choppers themselves didn't wait for long, as soon as all soldiers aboard were off, they quickly flew away back to where they from, to bring another wave of soldiers here. The unit's CO quickly rushed to Thompson to introduce himself and coordinate further operation.

"I'm Major Scott Bradley, 7th Cavalry Regiment, sir."

"Good Afternoon, guys. We've found the entrance, and we're going in."

"Alright, sir. Men, let's move!" Bradley ordered his troops.

As the gate was locked, the team had to rely on some kind of explosives to blow it off, and that would be Vostrikov's duty. He quickly groped for a suitable explosive inside his backpack, and at last he found it, a pack of 1kg HMX explosive.

The HMX was one of the most powerful explosive ever made, as it was 1.6 times more powerful than TNT. However, it was far less sensitive, either shock or heat couldn't detonate it, and required the special detonator to set it off.

"Wow, wow, wow, Demo. Do you wanna blow the whole castle up?" Defort asked. "Just a couple of grenades are more than enough."

"I know, but we need to certain about the result, and this is my reliable workhorse." Vostrikov said and plunged a detonator into the bomb.

Although a couple of grenades could destroy the gate, the demolition men were taught to use more bomb than the requirement to make sure that they could complete the mission without making the second return to set another bomb, which could be a dangerous return.

"Fire in a hole!" Vostrikov warned his teammates.

"Nuke in a hole!!" Defort yelled.

The A-216 members and the Cavalry had to take some covers as the bomb was so powerful. Vostrikov waited for a few seconds and looked around to make sure that everybody had a cover, and then he detonated the explosive.

The explosion was utterly forceful and could be heard from several miles away, created a curtain of dust and stone that flown freely around the gate. The team didn't make a move yet to see that the gate was destroyed, and it was. Then Thompson and Bradley ordered their units to rush inside the castle.

"Nice explosion, man." Rogers said.

"Thanks a lot, Comrade Rogers."

The first room that the team encountered was simply an empty room. They didn't know what this room was used for, but no time for questioning but advancing. Thompson felt certain and calm that the situation was totally calm, he didn't even see a guard patrolling around.

Nobody said anything as chit-chatting could betray their position and draw a bunch of monsters to shove the team off the castle. Sailor Moon's trail was rarer than finding a hairpin in the Pacific Ocean, so the A-216 members had to search every room they found, hoping to find Usagi in one of them.

The team eventually found a room in this cavernous hallway after marched for long. Westernhagen and Rogers quickly stepped beside the wooden door and kicked it down. Sadly, they didn't find Sailor Moon here, but something else.

"God, this is the engine room." Thompson said.

That room was quite big, and had a large, glowing energy reactor in the middle of the room. Nobody else but Thompson's team here, this room was totally unguarded. The A-216's CO realized that he couldn't let this castle fly back to the Dark Kingdom or let it become a threat against any upcoming Federal operations. He decided to disable this thing, but not before extraction.

"Vostrikov, plant a C4 here, we can't let it go back to the Dark Kingdom."

"Da."

Vostrikov followed the standard procedure inside his head to plant a 2kg of C4 plastic bomb. He simply glued the pack to the reactor and plunged it with a remote-controlled detonator, and that's it.

"The bomb's ready, Comrade Polkovnik."

"Right, let's go find Usagi. If we find other stuff, we'll make it go boom." Thompson said.

The team and the Cavalry retreated from the reactor room to find Sailor Moon elsewhere, who could be detained anywhere in the castle. Unless the map was discovered, the searching would take a lot of time.

While the ground (?) force was advancing deeper into the castle, the situation outside was quite grim for the Luftwaffe, the BF109s were low on fuel. The Messerschmitt BF109 was short-range fighter and couldn't maintain air superiority for long, and the fighters in the mission were G model, equipped with big guns and few rounds. They needed rearming as well.

"Karaya One, this is Gustav 01, my squadron was running out of fuel, request to break off, over."

"Permission granted, Gustav 01."

If Hartmann had some or more reinforcements, he wouldn't be so upset like he was feeling, almost one-third of the 109s had gone back to the base, and the rest couldn't stay in the air for more than 30 minutes. For Hartmann, it was time to call reinforcements elsewhere to bolster the air supremacy.

"Eagle base, this is Karaya One, we're low on fuel. Can you send us some substitutes?"

"Affirmative, Karaya One, we have a squadron of American F-14s and three squadrons from Russia, Su-30s, they'll be there in less than five minutes. The F-14s' callsign is Archangel, and 02x for the Russians."

"Roger that, Eagle base, Karaya One out."

Hartmann felt more confident as the reinforcements were coming. He still had 28 minutes of fuel and 120 rounds at his disposal. But he was unaware that his unit was going to face with the Dark Kingdom's aerial fighters.

And the castle finally unleashed its air-defending capability. Several monsters came out of the castle and extended their bat-like wings to intercept the Luftwaffe's fighters. Quite lucky for the BF109 pilots as the monsters had no ranged weapons, all they had were claws those sharp enough to cut through an airframe.

"Here they comes, all units scatter out." Hartmann ordered.

Hartmann himself considered a dogfight as 'waste of time', during the training he had developed his own fighting technique that based heavily on swift attacking. He flew, went close to the target, made a short burst of shooting, and broke off contact. His training partners and superiors considered this technique as extremely efficient as the pilot didn't have to waste too many bullets to bring an opponent down while quick breaking off could save them from being pitched in a dogfight.

The BF109s quickly flew away from the castle to encounter the monsters. Although they had not much fuel left in their tanks, the German pilot chose to fight as long as possible before the fuel quantity would eventually force them to go back. As Hartmann's unit was among the elites in the world, the pilot was very good at their profession and managed to protect their own lives from the surprising monsters, some even managed to shot down some flying bats. Hartmann himself had gathered two victories, and chased another flying monster in front of him. As his MK108 cannon had low muzzle velocity, he had to get as close as possible to make sure that every bullet Hartmann fired wouldn't be wasted.

Hartmann's BF109 approached the monster until it was only 100 meters behind the monster, then he pressed the trigger. A few 20mm rounds went from the gun to the monster so accurately and caused it to spin down the sky, another victory for Erich Hartmann.

The Americans and the Russians came into the war zone in less than 3 minutes, faster than Hartmann expected. But they didn't immediately come into visual range when Hartmann realized. They instead unleashed their BVR weapons from several miles away. Several AIM-54 Phoenix and R-77 AMRAAMskis (the R-77 got this name from its performance that equal, even better, than the AIM-120. The R-77 was still unavailable in 1993) streaked from the horizon and tackled with their designated targets; the monsters. As the both types were active-guided (a missile had its own built-in radar), the planes didn't have to keep locking on the target until impact, and therefore able to unleash several missiles to individual targets.

"Karaya One, sorry that we're late, it's quite long way from our carrier." The F-14 Tomcat pilot said.

"Roger that, Archangel One, thanks a lot for your assistance."

"That's OK, Karaya One. It's our pleasure." Archangel One replied.

The modern jet fighters quickly joined their predecessors to fight against the Dark Kingdom. Their mission was short and simple, to protect the ground force and wreck havoc as much as possible. Unless ran out of fuel or weapon, they would still up there and roaring on the sky to declare the air supremacy.

………….


	10. Daring Rescue II

Chapter X – Daring Rescue II

Meanwhile, the special force had advanced so deep into the dark castle. They had planted a bomb in each key rooms they found, so far, 4. Thompson felt satisfied a little as his team hadn't made any contact with the castle's guard, if they could retain their stealth-state until the time of extraction, the team could annihilate the whole castle and Kunzite would never know what happen.

Suddenly, Westernhagen gave his teammates a signal to freeze. After his signal, all movements in the A-216 team was completely ceased, everybody held still like stone statue and opened their eyes wide to see what was around them.

"Contact, sir." Westernhagen whispered. "Two guards, coming at us."

"Right, West, take the left guy. I'll take the right." Thompson said.

A kind of silenced mission, Thompson realized. Although this mission didn't have to be much quiet as the Dark Kingdom was aware of the ground force's insertion and all they had to know was the team's exact location, Stealth state was quite essential and improved the team's survival rate and the team would blow the cover only when needed to.

The team was quite far from the guards, so charging with knives was a very stupid idea. Thompson decided to put aside his favorite M1911A1 pistol to something quieter. The A-216's CO reached for his another sidearm that was sleeping in a leather holster. This pistol was quite bigger than the M1911A1 and obviously had better accessories such as laser dot sight and a suppressor. It was one of the newest innovations of the Federal Army and distributed to the A-216 team to use and maximize their already-premium quality, German Heckler & Koch Mk.23 SOCOM (First real distribution happened in 1996). Beside him Westernhagen also drew his suppressed pistol to use against the guard.

Even with the Mk. 23, their effective range wasn't beyond 50m and shorter for swift firing. Thompson and Westernhagen had to wait still and avoid provoking the guards until they came to 10m. The unaware guards continued their patrolling to 9m from the A-216 team only to find Thompson and Westernhagen leapt off the corner and got shot. No suppressor could completely silence the gun, but it could greatly reduce the noise to the unnoticing decibel.

After the guards were gone, the ground force continued on their advance without much hope to find Sailor Moon at least in a few minutes. But this time they were lucky enough to find another room in the middle area of the castle. The room's door had a hole with bars in it, telling that it was a prison.

Without any hesitation, The A-216 team and the Cavalry quickly rushed to the room and looked through the bars to see who was inside. The vision was quite small, but Thompson could see blonde hair on the ground.

"Blonde hair, she may be here." Thompson said.

Nothing to wait for, The A-216 team quickly kicked the door open and rushed inside the cell. All they found was nothing but an empty room, with somebody lying unconscious on the floor. It was Sailor Moon. Mitchell went by her body and tried to wake her up, but his effort was in vain. The doctor suspected that she had no energy left as her eyes blew wide.

"Sir, she has been drained." Mitchell reported.

"Damn." Lowe swore. "What will us going to do, sir?"

"We've to go find Kunzite and get energy back to her ASAP." Thompson said. "Let's move, we've to get to the highest room in this castle, Kunzite would probably be there. All Sailors, you stay here, we have to make sure that Kunzite won't come back and kill her."

"But, we want to fight."

"This maybe a trap, if we get stuck there, get her out of here as fast as possible." Thompson said. "Take this flare. It will call the chopper in."

Guessed that Kunzite should be on the top of the castle, as he had seen in the photos, Thompson led his own men and the cavalry to the nearest stairs they could find. But before the ground force could proceed upstairs, their appearance was noticed by some guards.

"Intruder!" the monsters yelled.

But that was the last word they could yell. As they finished their word, the nearest American soldiers strafed them with their M16A2s. Although the 5.56x45mm NATO round wasn't much bigger than .22LR round, the formers' noise was far louder. Thompson realized that his unit just betrayed their position by the unsuppressed shooting.

Not long before the castle was ready to deal with the intruders, but still not ready to deal with the A-216 team. Several waves of monsters came down upon the ground force, but the A-216 team had a massive firepower at their disposal.

Lowe, the machinegunner, felt uncomfortable when his teammates had to fight with outnumbering hostiles. He swiftly took his formidable weapon, the M134 minigun and aimed at a group of monsters that rushing at him.

As Lowe pressed the trigger, the minigun blazed to life. The powerful motor spun the minigun's all six barrels to load and fired in less than two seconds. The minigun started spraying bullets down the hallway, destroyed almost the entire monster group. Spent cases, chains, tracers flew around like a metal storm. Another bad news for the monsters, Lowe did use AP bullets.

"Failure (To remain silence) bad, Gun good." Rogers said.

However, the team had no time for strolling around. They had to be faster in order to catch Kunzite before he could find any escape. The ground force hastily advanced upstairs to the top floor, where Kunzite's room was.

Although there were a bunch of monsters in that floor, Thompson decided to have Lowe led the team. With his formidable M134 minigun, all monsters were easily brushed down. But the monsters still had some troops behind the ground force and were quickly dispatched to the back of the team.

"Monsters spotted on the back!" A soldier yelled.

"Then shoot them!" Bradley yelled.

Maj. Bradley quickly hopped to the back of the group and helped his men to shoot any coming monsters. He repeatedly tapped the trigger to sent 5.56x45mm rounds at targets and eventually depleted the clip.

"Reloading!" Bradley and some soldiers yelled to warn their men that they ran out of ammo.

Bradley groped into his equipment belt and grabbed a spare clip to reload his rifle. To avoid jamming, the 20-round M16A1 clip had only 18 rounds in it. But losing two rounds was more acceptable than fully loaded and got jammed after firing only one shot.

His cavalry unit was rather lightly-equipped, with no mortars or anti-tank rockets. But at least he still had some M60 machineguns with the unit. Bradley then ordered some machinegunners to deploy their M60s in front of the line. 

"Wax 'em!"

The machinegunners quickly went prone on the ground and started putting their machineguns to work. Tracer rounds flew down the hallway and cut down anybody who stupid enough to stand in their way. The second wave of spent cases began flying around along with chains. The guns kicked their users repeatedly like drillers.

Within 10 seconds the monsters were quickly mowed down. When Bradley saw no more threat coming at him, he ordered the machinegunners to return to their unit and gave Thompson, who was on the front, a clear signal. The A-216's CO then ordered the entire unit to advance.

Finally, after long marching and fighting through a bush of monsters, the team was just outside Kunzite's room. Thompson stepped to a big, wooden door with a tiny window on it to see what was inside. He saw Kunzite and some of his remaining monsters staying together on a throne. Not far from the throne was a little easel with something brightly on it, the Silver Crystal.

"Right, target spotted. Demo, blow this door up!"

"Da!"

Vostrikov again placed an HMX bomb on the door while the rest of the unit dispersed for cover. With his proficiency in demolition, he could finish the preparation in only 10 seconds before rushed for the cover.

"Fire in a hole!" Thompson yelled.

"Nuke in a hole, again!" Defort yelled.

Vostrikov detonated the bomb. The explosion was so violently that it shook the entire castle and caused some rocks to fall down, nobody got hurt from them. Dust flew everywhere and covered the area, but Thompson had no time to wait as he could use this as surprise element, so he ordered his men to rush inside.

"Go! Go! Go!" Thompson yelled.

The A-216 team and the Cavalry went into the room under the shadow of dust, left Kunzite and his monsters in surprise and confusion. Before he could realize what was actually going on, he found that he was surrounded by the A-216 team and a bunch of American soldiers.

"Kunzite, good to see you again." Rogers said. "Now give me back the crystal or I'll blow you back to 15th Century!"

"No way!" Kunzite said and threw energy boomerangs at the team, caused them to take cover.

"Looks like negotiation never works here." Rogers said. "So, let's unleash hell!"

Rogers quickly stood up and opened firing at Kunzite with his Winchester rifle, so did his teammates and Bradley's unit. Bullets sprayed everywhere and caught some monsters down, but not Kunzite as he hid behind the stone throne.

But his cover was about to gone away as Bacon aimed his FN2000 rifle at the throne and let the computer calculated the explosion time and range, before shot a grenade at the stone and destroyed part of it, followed by Vostrikov's RPG, and Kunzite's only cover was no more.

"You destroyed my castle, so face consequences." Kunzite said and summoned a large boomerang, large enough to kill everybody in the room except Kunzite himself.

But Kunzite's luck was out, as the Luftwaffe's fighters were still out there, and one of them saw Kunzite through a large window. So he dived down, controlled his plane carefully and then strafed into the room with 20mm and 13mm cannons. Tracer bullets came into the room and interrupted Kunzite's attack, if he was still there, he would have been strafed down.

"Johnny, get that crystal now!" Thompson ordered.

"Yes, sir!" Connor replied.

Connor rushed to the easel and managed to grab the Silver Crystal. He realized that if he held it in his hand, Kunzite would realize that the Crystal was stolen, so he put it into his backpack and quickly rejoined the team.

Thompson saw that the Crystal was in the team's hand, so there was no need to stay in the room. They didn't have to kill Kunzite as Queen Beryl would eventually punish him for his failure. What he had to do next was returning the Crystal to its owner.

The team and the Cavalry quickly withdrew back all the way down to the cell without any encounter with the monsters, as there were no more monsters to fight with. Sailor Moon was still there as nobody had moved her, what a fortunate that Kunzite didn't come here. If he was here earlier, Sailor Moon would be killed.

"Ami, how can we return the Crystal to her?" Mitchell asked.

"Just place it on her chest, and it will go back to its berth." Sailor Mercury replied.

Mitchell took the Silver Crystal from Connor and placed on Sailor Moon's chest. The Crystal glowed so bright before disappeared like nothing had happened before. The team and the Sailors realized that the Silver Crystal was inside her body. However, it would take some time before she wake up.

"We've to wait for a few minutes before she will wake up." Sailor Jupiter said.

"Right, let's get her out of here." Thompson said. "Bradley, call the choppers in."

"Yes, sir!"

Everybody continued withdrawing, with Sailor Moon on Sailor Jupiter's back. Under Westernhagen's leading, the team could get out of the castle in less than 10 minutes. All they could see outside was the squadron of newly-refueled BF109 fighters, the F-14s and the Su-30s. Without any obvious air threats, they simply flew around the castle and made some skirmishing against the castle itself.

The team didn't have to wait for long, as among the fighters was the UH-1s. The first coming quickly landed on the same LZ to pick up the ground force. This time Sailor Jupiter didn't show any sign of aerophobia at all as she could overcome those feeling with the desire to save her friend.

"Get aboard! We don't want to stay here longer than needed to!" The gunner said.

"Right, let's get out of here." Thompson said. "Ladies first!"

Sailor Moon's body was the first who brought aboard, followed by the Sailor soldiers and some American soldiers to the max capacity. After the first chopper left, the second landed and picked up another chalk of men while the A-216 team stayed on the LZ to cover it.

But somebody didn't let the team go quite easily, Kunzite appeared from the balcony and stared at the team. Nobody noticed him yet, but the Shitennou would use this as his advantage. He again summoned a large energy boomerang in order to destroy the A-216 team, if the team was no more, his job would be far easier.

However, somebody noticed Kunzite, not the team but somebody above. It was the pilots of the first F-14 Tomcat, Archangel One. It flew past the castle once and then placed itself in front of Kunzite to concentrate its powerful radar against him.

"Locked on him!" The navigator said.

"Right, Fox One!"

An AIM-54 Phoenix missile came out of the pylon and ignited its engine to propel the missile forward. With the complicated guidance system that navigated it to the target, the missile went almost directly to the general and almost plunged into his body, if he didn't dodge aside. The explosion wasn't powerful as Vostrikov's HMX, but yet enough to blow Kunzite back into the castle.

Everybody below wondered what was going on up there, but when they saw the F-14 passed by, everybody waved their hands to greet the pilots before continued the extraction. The A-216 kept their promise by being the last team extracted from the castle.

"Phew, what a tough mission." Rogers said. "Demo, don't you leave Kunzite a present?"

"Yes, I have, Comrade Rogers." Vostrikov said and rose the main detonator up. "Kunzite, I've got a present for ya."

Vostrikov pressed the detonator in the eyes of everybody aboard. They stared at the castle and awaiting a nice fireworks. Nothing happened in the first second, but in the third second, a massive explosion went off from every channel and window in the castle. That didn't completely destroy it, but left the castle in ruin, plus some bombs dropped from the final wave of Ju-87 Stukas, before the air force withdrew from the castle.

"We've a good firework." Rogers said.

"Yes, good job soldiers." Thompson said. "Pilot, where will we go?"

"Back to our base, sir."

The choppers headed back peacefully to the base, where several soldiers and medics were waiting them in case somebody got wounded. Thompson saw the former helicopters landed and everybody but air crew extracted from them before his chopper did the same thing.

The A-216 team quickly hopped off the chopper to see that Sailor Moon, who was last seen unconscious, was OK. Mitchell was the first one who reached the first helicopter, where he saw Sailor Moon talking to her friends.

"Sir, she's OK!" Mitchell yelled. "Sailor Moon, are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm fine, Doctor. Thank you so much that you saved my life, and the Silver Crystal."

"You can't say thanks only to me, but the team, your friends, and the 7th Cavalry Division participated in this operation too."

"Good that you're OK." Thompson said. "Do you need a lift? We have a lot of lift here."

"No thanks, we can go back on our own." Sailor Mars said.

"Right then, we've to go."

……………

The A-216 house – 1730 hrs

Konichek's UH-60 landed on the same LZ as usual. Thompson and his men jumped off the chopper and walked to their house. There was no need for gas protection, and prevent Usagi or somebody else thought that they were aliens, so they took them off their faces.

"Phew, another mission is completed." Rogers said. "I guess that Kunzite wouldn't start his plan again in 100 years."

"He never give up, Rogers." Lowe said. "He'll start his plan again, unless he is terminated."

After the team came back to the house, the dinner started by Bacon. As usual, nobody knew what he would cook until it was finished. While Bacon was cooking the meal, Thompson could hear the ring rang off. So he left the table and walked to the door to see who came to the house.

Thompson found that Ami was standing at the other side of the door alone. He opened the door to greet her.

"Hello, Ami-chan." Thompson greeted.

"Is Mr. Westernhagen here?"

"Yes, he's right here. West! Ami is here."

Upon hearing that Ami was waiting for him, Westernhagen quickly rushed out of the Kitchen to meet Ami at the front door.

"Mr. Westernhagen, can I borrow your books?" Ami asked.

"Sure, come with me."

Westernhagen led Ami to a bookshelf in the sitting room. It was filled by foreign books those he had brought to Japan, plus additional local-bought Japanese books. Most of the books were English and German. Although he most interested in war theory, Westernhagen did have various books with various topics. Ami opened her eyes wide in surprise that there were so many books, much more than hers.

"You can choose at your will." Westernhagen said.

"Thank you."

Ami looked at the bookshelf for several seconds and took some books from it.

"What about the others?" Adams asked.

"At Usagi's house, doing homework." Ami said. "It's very hard for them, so I have to help."

"It wouldn't be so bad if we would go there and help them." Thompson said. "We have a lot of free time tonight. Let's go."

The A-216 team decided to go help the Sailors deal with their homework. As Usagi's house wasn't far from the team's house, they could walk to that place, led by Usagi.

"Mother, I'm home!" Usagi yelled upon arriving at her house. "Everybody, see who I've brought here."

Her happily voice attracted everybody in the house to come and see who the mystery guests were. They were surprised as the guests were the A-216 members, and wondered that what they would do.

"They agreed to help us in our homework." Usagi said. "Ami, I think that we demand too much from you. Do you want to take a rest?"

"No, thanks, I'll stay here and help all of you."

"OK, where can we start?" Defort asked.

As Defort and Mitchell had been the Green Beret soldiers, which one of the main duties was to teach and train local people to be the militia, they were the first members who rushed and helped the Sailors do their homework. In the past time, the Sailors had to rely heavily on Ami, who was far intelligent than everybody in the group combined, but sometimes this stressed her a lot.

The A-216 team became further involved in the Sailors' lives, assisting them in their ordinary lives as well as the duty as the protectors. Although this wasn't the team's primary objective, but they were glad to help anyway. Moreover, Thompson himself knew well that if the Sailors couldn't deal with their personal life, the overall fighting performance as the Sailors would drop down, as they had things to worry about.

…………


End file.
